The Day He Himself Shall Wipe My Tears Away
by plumbloom
Summary: After Aang's death at the hands of the Phoenix King, the world seeks - to save, or destroy - the next incarnation of the Avatar. A/U, set 10 years post-series. warnings for violence, gore, sexual content. multiple pairings.
1. Flight

_They clamour and fight, they doubt and despair, they know no end_

_to their wrangling._

_Let your life come amongst them like a flame of light, my_

_child, unflickering and pure, and delight them into silence._

_They are cruel in their greed and their envy, their words are like_

_hidden knives thirsting for blood._

_Go and stand amidst their scowling hearts, my child, and let_

_your gentle eyes fall upon them like the forgiving peace of the_

_evening over the strife of the day._

_Let them see your face, my child, and thus know the meaning_

_of all things; let them love you and thus love each other._

_Come and take your seat in the bosom of the limitless, my_

_child. At sunrise open and raise your heart like a blossoming_

_flower, and at sunset bend your head and in silence complete the_

_worship of the day. _

- R. Tagore

She snapped awake in the middle of the night, sitting bold upright without wasted movement or noise, listening for what had awoken her: some change in the air, or ground. Perhaps it had been only a piercing sense of dread. She had not remembered her dreams in years, but often woke with a crushing sorrow, a sense that she had been on the edge of a dream, and then his face would rise before her. His laugh, his voice. The wind at her back felt like his touch for years before she ceased to hope. Struggling to focus, she pushed the thoughts out of her head and held her body attentively, listening.

It was a temperate night late in spring. No breezes blew. Next to her she could hear the sounds of her brother's shallow breathing. Her own heartbeat thudded in her ears. From the moonlight which filtered into their tent she judged it to be several hours before dawn.

Then she felt it. The earth shivered delicately beneath her, as if it had been struck by a lover and retaliated in kind. In the next instant, as she sprang to her feet, Toph appeared at the opening to their tent, otherwise blank features knit up in a vague grimace. "They're coming."

Sokka awoke, getting up and grabbing for the sword at his side, as she rushed out of the tent. They'd practiced – and executed – the maneuver dozens of times, but it was never any less nerve-wracking, never devoid of a sense of absolute desperation. The possibility of death for all of them always leered, mocking their efforts. The last time they had not been quick enough, and had suffered for it, but thankfully nothing serious.

That night, fortunately, it had been Toph's turn to sleep with the children. Now she stood by Appa, palms to the ground, erasing their marks from the earth, covering the area they had been using as a latrine over with rich black soil. The children were already awake, their meager possessions gathered in their arms and on their backs, some of them rubbing at their eyes. None of them made a sound as they gazed at Katara, almost sullenly. She detected the fear in their expressions and made a calming gesture in place of the reassuring smile she could not muster while she counted, double-checking.

_Fourteen_. She fought against the terror that seized her limbs, making them tremble, and re-counted. Still only fourteen.

She motioned for them to gather close, and herded them to the side of the airship. Already Zuko was inside, stoking the fire which inflated the balloon, and the ship rose a few feet from the ground. Glancing behind her, she confirmed that Sokka had loaded the rest of their supplies into Appa's saddle and was now tethering the bison to the airship. He reached down to give Toph a hand up, and caught his sister's eye.

Silently, she held up a finger. His eyes widened momentarily and then he stood upright, trying to use his perch on Appa as a vantage point from which he could survey the surrounding forest. After a few seconds he glanced back down and shook his head.

The earth shuddered again, and Zuko paused in his bending to gesture at her. _Get them aboard._ The airship rocked back and forth gently.

She strove to push her terror aside and help them aboard one by one. As she did so she mentally checked off names and faces, until she reached the very last, and her heart dropped as she realized which child was not present.

_Amit_.

One of the girls, Tsering, was whispering into Zuko's ear. He looked up in alarm when she had finished, and bent another column of flame into the stove before coming to crouch beside Katara, favoring his recently wounded right leg.

"She says he left in the night and never came back."

"How?" Angry with herself, Katara shook her head briefly to clear it. "Does she remember when?"

"No."

"I'll stay behind."

He reached down and grasped her forearm in an uncharacteristic display of encouragement. "We'll see you at the meeting place." She nodded, knowing there was nothing else to say. Some of the children peeked over the railing, looking after her, and she motioned them back.

As she disappeared into the forest, she glanced back, and saw her brother looking after her, a silent upright figure against the night sky. She lifted one hand, but he turned away, pulling at the reins, and Appa rose slowly into the sky, the airship trailing.

Katara watched them go. She knew that they would fly low for awhile, gaining distance from the enemy, before lifting up far above the lower cover of clouds and heading in the opposite direction. If she did not have Amit to worry over, it would have been a valuable opportunity to evaluate the strength and force of the warriors trailing them.

Instead, she took several deep breaths to calm her nerves before touching a nearby tree. Now that the others were safe, most of her anxiety had evaporated, but she wanted to ensure that none of the negative feelings, like poison, leached out of her body and flowed into the forest. It was the rainy season, and the ground was fortunately damp from a night-shower. Closing her eyes, she filtered out the shaking of the ground and tried to listen to the forest.

The trees trembled, too, with the force of the oncoming enemy. The water pooling in underground recesses filled with ripples, seeming to flow over the surface of her skin. Breathing even more deeply, finally she found him: not a half-mile to the west, his bare feet in a small pool fed by the trickle of a stream. His aura was calm and seemed to expect her inquiry; his energy flowed back to hers like ripples on the surface of a pond. Joy and relief flooded her when she found him, and the connection was abruptly broken.

Pausing only briefly to ensure that all traces of the camp had been cleared away, she headed for the cover of the forest, toward Amit.

* * *

His work at the stove which fed the airship finally done, Zuko moistened a rag in a bucket of water and wiped the soot from his face, chest and arms. The children were clustered in small groups, many of them already sleeping peacefully. Others whispered to one another, glancing at him from time to time, or stared off into space, thinking their inscrutable thoughts.

Even though it had been over three years that he'd been with them, he still never felt totally at ease around the children. They were drawn naturally to Katara, who gave off a vague motherly air; they admired Sokka, as the de facto leader, and were fascinated by Toph, who made them laugh and played with them. But there was always a sense of hesitation in their gazes when they saw Zuko, especially when he was bending; they were unable to separate the fire which burst from his palms from the fire that had destroyed their lives and families. He accepted it, content to function in the role of 'protector' and not 'caretaker'. He had no stories for them, no comforting caresses, no wise explanations. He submitted himself to their protection as repentance for the evil his family had wrought.

The death of the Avatar at the hands of the Phoenix King had prompted a veritable frenzy. The Fire Nation's forces were divided between spreading their territory and commanding the holdings they had won during the time of Sozin's Comet, and seeking out the new Avatar to kill it. The honor of the job had been given to the new Firelady – his sister, Azula. The orders she issued were simple: to kill any Water tribe children born within a week of the Avatar's death. Being unable to make an absolute determination about the time of birth, the command led to the death of hundreds of children. The people of the Northern Water tribe were scattered to the four winds, their lands reduced to rubble.

A small team of young people from the Four Nations had kept themselves barely ahead of the slaughter, pleading with new mothers to follow them or go into hiding; practically raiding orphanages and monasteries for any children without parents who fit the description. They spread out into hidden enclaves in the remotest parts of the world, relocating as the need arose. With the rebellions that flared up in the years after the Phoenix King assumed the throne, killing the next Avatar (especially in his or her childhood years) was less of a priority than it might have been otherwise.

When the children turned five, the enclaves in various places around the world weeded out those who demonstrated no skill at waterbending and returned them to their parents, or fostered them out as they were able. It brought the overall number of children down to fifteen, and they began new lives as nomads with Toph, Sokka, and Katara, the numbers of original protectors having severely waned due to death, imprisonment, or joining with the various rebellions in the different nations. It had been around this time that Zuko had joined their number, having been imprisoned until that time for attempting to wrest control of the throne away from Azula on the day of Sozin's Comet. Though it had taken some time – and cost Zuko his dignity, and nearly his life – he managed to gain their trust and join with them in protecting the new Avatar.

The Avatar relics gone or destroyed, they had no way of knowing if the reincarnation of Aang was among them, or if the cycle had moved to its next incarnation because of an infant they had looked over or failed to save. They continued their mission without questioning, fearing the answers. Soon, it had been agreed, Toph would begin to instruct them in earthbending, and if any demonstrated capabilities it would be known for sure. _Until then…_

"Is anyone hungry?" he called, trying to make his voice less rough but unused to doing what was usually Katara's job. Their supplies had been scarce since the time of his injury, which made it difficult for him to hunt. Though his own stomach groaned with hunger, he pushed the sensation aside, knowing that if any of the adults ate there would scarcely be enough for the children. Several of them raised their hands hesitantly, and he took them dried meat and berries from the supply baskets, counting their dwindling rations out carefully. He prayed none of them had to go to the bathroom.

Though they were filthy (a recent idea of Sokka's, or an excuse since they had no time to bathe them: mud as camouflage) he had no trouble recognizing each one of them. There was Sulati, whose parents had taken out her eyes for fear she would be recognized as a child of the Water tribe, before they could stop them. She wore an embroidered blindfold covering the ugly scar tissue. Yural of the throaty voice, who cried the loudest when Katara had shaved their heads to make them less distinguishable from one another. Rann, who had not spoken a word since the day his father was burnt alive in front of him. And Amit.

Though she had never said so explicitly, Zuko and the others knew that Katara thought Amit was the next Avatar. He thought of her now, scouring the forest to find him, and silently offered a prayer to no one that she would find him, and then them, safely. Pain raced through his leg as one of the children jostled it and he gritted his teeth, remembering Mai's face, cold and calculating, as she'd run his thigh clean through with one of her knives. It had missed the bone, but had not failed to carve through his heart. It was the last time they had engaged the three girls and their soldiers, and they'd barely gotten away with the children's lives.

With a barely audible sigh he lowered himself back into a sitting position near the stove so he could keep it fired, and to his surprise Quopuk, one of the smaller and more timid boys, leaned onto him. Awkwardly Zuko shifted so that the boy's head was on his shoulder, and let him rest that way.

The bison and airship raced ahead of the night that threatened to consume them.

* * *

Katara rubbed at her cheek where the dried mud made it itch. The sound and rumble of Azula's tiger-elephants had faded into the distance. Here and there, streaks of sunlight penetrated the forest canopy. She relaxed in the curve of a large branch, watching Amit sleep.

She'd found him soon after being forced to leave the others behind, and she could not find it in her heart to chastise him. Instead they shared a simple meal, washed their faces, and climbed high into the branches of an old tree. Exhausted from spending the night wandering the forest, he fell asleep in her lap without a word. Absently she ran a bandaged and half-gloved hand, stained rust with the color of old blood, over his smooth-shaven skull.

His eyes were dull gray, almost black, and the way he smiled with his eyes closed reminded her so much of Aang that it had made her heart ache since she'd first discovered him in an Earth Kingdom orphanage at the age of two. At the time, she, Sokka, Suki and Haru had composed a group and had a full outfit of Earth Kingdom soldiers and nearly sixty children and their parents with them.

They'd been in hiding in a swamp, and a man had come from the orphanage carrying a small boy. He claimed that a woman of the Water Tribe had abandoned him nearly two years earlier after coming to the orphanage to give birth. The timeline was right, Sokka had conceded, but his eyes were too dark, his skin too fair, to be a member of the Water tribe, no matter what the owner of the orphanage claimed. Besides, they had too many children with them already. Katara had been on the verge of agreeing before the small, nameless boy had smiled at her, and from that time she had kept him at her side as they traveled from enclave to enclave.

Amit, as she named him, never demonstrated partiality to her as many of the other children did; rarely cried, and never played. Instead he spent hours watching a single fireant make its way across a field, or listening to wind howl over a gorge. When she began to instruct the children in waterbending, he showed no initial aptitude until one of the bigger boys pushed him into a swift-moving river. Calmly, he'd waterbended himself out. On several occasions she'd caught herself thinking of him as Aang, and her physical recoil when she realized what she'd done was enough to make her nauseous.

_He is gone. The next Avatar will not be him, even if they are able to channel his spirit._ She'd been unable to function for the first few months after his death. Sokka dragged her around by her hair, screaming that she would die, that they would all die, and the children with them. Eventually she'd snapped out of it, but the damage she'd done to her relationship with her brother, and to herself, was near-irreversible.

It was not Aang who haunted her, but her creation of him. It waited for her, for any moment of quiet, of peace, bidding her remember, suffer, regret. The moment at which she imagined herself saved, it returned, instantly provoking a thousand thoughts, a thousand emotions. She forced herself to function in spite of it, but privately she was in agony.

The weight of the years pressed on the chasm his death had left in her, but it never threatened to collapse or grow smaller. Her being moved around the ache, like the rot at the heart of an ancient tree. Each day, it pained her afresh; with each season passing, a new element came into focus, and devastated her in its particular way. The earth tore at her. The water wore her away. The fire charred her. And the air chilled her to her very bones. The first day it had started to truly lessen was when she had found Amit. She protected and nurtured him especially, conscious of her duty to the reincarnated Avatar.

She'd found him once, trapped in the iceberg, waiting for her breath, the sound of her voice, her touch.

She would find him again.


	2. Home

Sokka knelt in the mud on one knee, his other foot braced against a jagged piece of the ancient, crumbling temple. His long, tangled hair was pulled back with a strip of animal hide, and he was sharpening his sword with slow, calm motions. Zuko approached cautiously, careful not to startle him.

"The children have been taken below."

"Good. The airship?"

"Hidden, and Appa's taken off." Carefully Zuko lowered himself onto another piece of broken stone. Noticing that his wound had re-opened, staining the dirty bandages with fresh spots of blood, he swore under his breath before continuing. "How does it look below?"

"We have enough dried stores and firewood to last for at least two weeks, if we're careful. No sign that any of the others have been here recently." Sokka watched out of the corner of his eye as Zuko stripped a tattered sleeve from his tunic and wound it tightly around his thigh. Beads of sweat stood out on the firebender's brow, but not a sound escaped from between his clenched teeth. "You want some help with that?"

"Maybe…get me…a couple of thick branches?" He swallowed the blood in his mouth from biting hard on his tongue, and breathed deeply, trying to quiet his screaming nerves. "If I don't splint it, I'm not going to be able to walk for awhile."

Wordlessly Sokka stood and left the clearing. By the time he had returned, Zuko had used the rest of his sleeve to mop away the sweat from his face, and finished re-bandaging the wound. Trying to tie his hair back with a piece of thread, he breathed in and wished fervently that he could take a long, hot bath.

Sokka rested the branches against Zuko's stone perch. "I cut them to the right size. There's rawhide down in the caves – you should probably splint it there."

"Sure." His hair, jawline-length, was barely long enough to be tied back, and it kept slipping out of his hands, damp from blood and sweat. He offered no resistance when Sokka reached over and tied it himself, then hoisted Zuko's arm across his shoulders, helping him to his feet and grabbing the branches with his free hand. "Thanks."

As they moved toward the mouth of the cave, Toph appeared in the entrance, tensing when she sensed them moving as one unit. "Everything okay?"

"I'm fine."

"Liar." A resigned smile pulled at one corner of her mouth, a sweet expression. "You're really gonna die this time, without Katara around."

"Did you come up to help, or to perform last rites?"

Impatiently she gestured at Sokka, who lowered Zuko into a sitting position and stepped away. "Actually – " Her brow knit briefly in concentration, she earthbended the rock beneath Zuko into a makeshift stretcher, and swirling her heel across the floor moved it gently toward her. " – I came to talk to you." Sokka handed the branches to Zuko, and slowly the three began the descent into the caverns.

The twisting passage down was discernable only to those who had trekked it over and over again. The jealous invention of a long-dead, forgotten king, the natural caverns and tunnels had been carved out to create a series of storage-rooms for his treasure. Strange hieroglyphs, worn by time and covered with fungus, dotted the walls, leading would-be attackers down any number of false paths. Zuko illuminated the way with a flame in his palm, and Toph smoothed out the tracks they left behind.

Nearly a mile below the surface, the right path widened out and angled downward, and the sound of running water was audible. The main series of caverns was run through by a river, and it had been diverted long ago into a series of small pools, tiled with blue and green stone. The walls were pitted with alcoves in which moss grew, and the children made their beds there. Blind fish swam in the cool, clear water, and spider-bats hung from the high ceiling.

Here, the children were happy and noisier than usual, darting around in the dim glow of the phosphorescent orange and green veins of rock which illuminated the stone walls. As they entered, a few ran up, grinning and wet from playing in the river. "Welcome home!"

"Look, Toph! You can see my face!" Shong seized her hands and guided them roughly over his damp forehead and cheeks.

"I can see!" She ran a hand fondly over his skull, too. "It looks like you need a haircut."

He ducked away from her, sticking out his tongue at all three of them. "Not 'til we leave. I hate that – it itches!"

Sokka watched him scamper away in faint disapproval. "They're bathing?"

"Why not? I told them only to go in the river."

"What if we have to leave? They'll just have to get dirty again."

"Why should we have to leave?"

Zuko half-listened to their argument as he wrestled his leg into the splints.

"We can't afford to wait. Azula's been narrowing in on us these last few months. We won't be able to protect all of them much longer."

"So we should find the others, take refuge in one of the fortified towns…"

"And draw the fire of the entire Army? That would make it easy for them to crush one of the fortresses _and_ kill the children, all in one blow." Toph ran one hand over her close-shaved pate, the only display of anxiousness they'd ever seen her make into a habit. It had been no easier for her than for the children to part with her hair; she claimed it threw her off-balance, made it harder for her to feel, harder to 'see'. "Listen, bonehead. I'm teaching them earthbending. We've bought ourselves at least a month. That's enough time."

Sokka considered silently, not wanting to appear weak or indecisive, especially not without Katara at his side. "Zuko."

Surprised at having been addressed, the firebender looked up from his work. "Hm?"

"What do you think?"

Not having fully understood Sokka's objections, and not able to formulate any of his own, he shrugged. "I don't see how harm could come of it."

Toph nodded in satisfaction. "Thanks for the vote of confidence." Sokka looked displeased, and turned away from them to start doling out dinner. Toph sighed and followed him, continuing to press her argument.

Meanwhile one of the girls, Raksha, had sidled over, watching Zuko gingerly test the new splint by standing. "Does it hurt a lot?"

"Only when I move," he joked, and was pleased to see her give a shy smile in response. Not taking her eyes off his wounded leg, she reached inside her filthy, voluminous robes, withdrawing a small wooden loom, and then sat cross-legged on the ground before him.

"Would you like to watch me?"

Taken aback, he stared down at her. Her eyes were such a light shade of blue that they were nearly white, and she had tucked the two braids that Katara had spared behind her ears, which stuck out slightly from her otherwise bald head. She gave him another shy, expectant smile.

"Okay."

"Let me show you." Holding the small loom crosswise over her lap, she guided the shuttle between the strips of rawhide dexterously. Color bloomed slowly beneath her fingers.

"Where did you learn weaving?" Zuko ventured at length, trying to sound friendly. He was the only one of the four adults who had difficulty learning to spin Appa's fur into wool, and then knit the wool into clothing. Nearly all the cloth supplies they had – garments, blankets, rugs – had been knit by the other three. Though Toph's pieces occasionally turned out crooked or oddly shaped, Zuko had never been able to produce anything but a snarled mess.

Raksha answered without looking up: "With one of the other families, when I was little. Meng taught all of us."

Curious that she would call them _families_ – but no less strange, he supposed, than the remaining fifteen calling this place _home_. When the shuttle completed its next turn, he reached out to help her hold the rawhide to thread it through again, but before his fingers made contact with the loom, Raksha pulled back in alarm. "No!"

Instinctively he pulled back as well, feeling defensive.

"You'll burn it," she said, her tone childish and accusatory. Her eyes, which had previously been so wide and clear, were narrowed in suspicion. Though the accusation held no weight, he still felt the heat of shame flood his face, and spread over it. The sensation was duller beneath the scar tissue that marred the left side of his face, and he lowered his head, at a loss for words.

"He doesn't burn everything he touches, silly," Toph broke in, coming over from where she had been talking quietly with Sokka. "See?" As if to demonstrate, she held out one small hand, patiently waiting for Zuko to take it. He stared at her feet, black and callused on the rough stone floor.

He stood up, feeling the bones in his back crack as he did so. "I'm going hunting." Though Toph's expression did not change, she seemed to deflate, the outstretched hand dropping to her side.

"What do you think you'll catch with that leg?" Sokka asked as he passed through the huddled children and crouched to begin the ascent to the jungle, dragging the splinted leg behind him.

Zuko did not reply.

* * *

Having been permitted into her private tent, the scout saluted briefly and then dropped into a deep bow. "Your Highness."

Azula regarded him coldly from her seat on a throne of burnished gold, free of any decoration save for the curling tongues of flame which composed its back. Though he did not move, and his face betrayed no expression, she could feel his fear. He stank of it, and all the heat had drained from his extremities. _How boring._ "Well?" she said at length, enjoying drawing out his terror.

"We've lost their trail. The company awaits your further instructions."

"Are you really that incompetent?" Unsteepling her fingers, she crooked one at him and drew a small figure-8 in the air. Though he could barely see what she was doing, with his face turned toward the ground, the way his breath caught was infinitely pleasurable. His entire body gave a brief, convulsive twitch and began, slowly, to turn an interesting shade of pink. "My only _instructions_ are to find this nursery, and roast every last one of the little Avatars-in-training until only their ashes are left. I don't recall changing them even once in the past five years."

Choking, feeling his blood start to boil, the scout managed to nod. Fire energy raced along the lines of his chi, circling slowly around his heart, which contracted suddenly.

"So I fail to understand your presence here."

"M-my failure, your Highness – I'm – s-sorry…"

"Ah, well, that changes everything! You're _sorry_. All is forgiven." Disgusted, Azula uncrooked her finger and snapped it back up. "Be thankful you still have your life, and get out of my sight." Aware of Ty Lee's approach, even though the whisper of her slippers over the thick hand-woven rugs was near-imperceptible, Azula stood and stretched.

The graceful warrior sidled over as softly as a cat, her face impassive. "It was good of you to spare him."

"Daddy was disappointed about the last one I cooked." She shook her head with a slow deliberate motion, examining her fingernails. "He doesn't understand how to get results, apparently."

"Perhaps it would be better if we were to split off from the company and travel on our own," she offered with no trace of emotion or investment, as if she were listing dessert choices at a restaurant, and carefully gauging, without seeming to do so, Azula's reaction. Azula admired her deference and tact, skills acquired over the long years.

"It would certainly be less troublesome to track them that way. But we can't risk it. Who knows what that crew of mongrels has been teaching them? We need to be assured of victory." Darkly Azula recalled their last engagement with the ragtag little band. The children had retreated into a river and waterbent a bubble of ice around them.

Though Mai had managed to wound her worthless traitor of a brother, the Water tribe bitch, her brother and the earthbender had been more than enough to hold off the three of them. The soldiers of the company had nearly firebent their way through to the brats when one of them (it rankled her to admit she had no idea which) brought down a rain of hailstones large enough to startle the tiger-elephants and send them stampeding. In the resulting chaos, they had made away – barely – with their lives.

_Never again_, she promised herself. Next time she'd just combust them to bits as soon as she got close enough, even if it left her open to attack. They were too good, too preoccupied with a sense of 'justice' – even after all these years – to kill her outright. She trusted Mai and Ty Lee to protect her. And, even in the worst-case scenario, she was assured of her survival by an arrangement which not even those two knew about.

The past ten years had been tiring for them, she knew. Not for her. The thrill of the hunt was surpassed only by the sweetness of taking a life into her hands and slowly extinguishing it. When it was finally over, she could join her father at the front lines. Quashing rebellions was the slow, dirty work, but it seemed finally to be coming to an end, and she, Azula, would be the one to see it finished.

Ty Lee had been waiting silently while she ruminated, and Azula's hand shot out, catching her small chin in one deadly hand. Bringing their faces together, Azula's teeth gleamed so white they were almost blue as she grinned.

"Get them ready to move out. We're close – I can feel it."

Feeling the bones of her jaw grate together, Ty Lee closed her eyes in a paroxysmal imitation of a smile.

"Yes, Highness."


	3. Rain

"_Rain drips from the roof lip;__  
__Loneliness sounds like that.__"_

- I. Sojun

"How could he just storm off like that?" Sokka whispered furiously under his breath. Quopuk, who was receiving his bowl of soup from the older man, looked up at him quizzically, and he managed a strangled grin for the boy.

"He said he was going hunting," Toph answered neutrally. Having checked all around the caverns and made some minor structural repairs, she was now seated next to Sokka on a stool she'd fashioned from the phosphorescent rock, fixing some linens the children had brought to her. Many of the children had shucked off their clothes when they started playing in the water, and the cavern was a mess, dotted with half-naked bodies here and there, contentedly eating the dinner Sokka had prepared.

"We need him here right now. It's not only dangerous, it's inconvenient. How are the two of us supposed to take care of all of them without his help?"

Toph sighed, setting her awl down and lifting the cloth she was working on. "Is this shirt dirty?"

Turning briefly from the pot over the fire to look, Sokka cringed. "Yeah, it's pretty filthy."

Still seated, the earthbender stamped one bare foot on the ground so that the entire cavern shook and then hollered, "How many times do I have to tell you _not to bring me dirty mending_?"

At once the chatter of the children was silenced. One of the smaller girls hiccupped, and then a few more giggled nervously.

"Please wash it first," she continued sweetly.

A chorus of "Sorry's" from the chastened bunch.

"See?" Toph continued, laying the soiled shirt aside and picking up another from the pile at her feet. "I can yell at them, earthbend at them, hell, I _know_ I've spanked some of them, but nothing I ever do will terrify them the way that Zuko does. It's painful for him to face that."

"Well, it's been long enough – he ought to be over it by now." Having served the last child, Sokka covered the pot and sat down next to Toph to help with the mending.

"It's been worse since the last battle."

Sokka picked up a torn blanket. "There's nothing we can do about that. He shouldn't be with us, if that's the case. There's plenty of other places he could be, things he could be doing…like fighting on the front lines against his crazy father."

"Don't talk like that." Pausing in her deft darning, she turned her head in his general direction. "We wouldn't have made it without him."

"All I'm saying is that we can't expect them not to fear a firebender. They've been fleeing from firebenders since they were born, seen their families ripped apart or killed…" Bitterly Sokka fingered an old burn on one bony shoulder, now faded with the years and Katara's care. "No one can blame them for how they feel about Zuko."

"Katara says that the next Avatar must not grow up with a fear of firebending. If they do…"

"History will just repeat itself. I know." Keeping half an eye on his mending, Sokka studied Toph. She was still the shortest of all of them, her body small, compact and powerful. A deep scar marked one of her pale cheeks from an arrow she hadn't been able to see. She had gotten thin – they all had, over the past few months – but the muscles in her arms still quivered visibly beneath her skin while she darned.

He kept face in front of the children, but the demons tore at him in the night, howling, so that he might commit the unspeakable. And so he had. In contrast Toph seemed calm, like the face of a mountain seen at a distance. The years had pitted one cheek, but nothing more, or so it seemed. She weathered it silently, mildly, and underneath all of it her personality, the human who was Toph, seemed intact.

_She hasn't seen_. How underneath, how the insides, could destroy the out. It was worse than your body betraying you; worse than going mad. How another person could worm inside of you and set your body against itself. Briefly, in his mind's eye, her body moved convulsively like a doll thrown onto the floor by a petulant child.

Sokka drew himself upright, shaking his head. _The thoughts that you allow…_to torment him. While his sister wasn't there, and there was no one in the night to receive the demons' blessing. Rising, saying nothing to Toph, he left the main cavern for one of its side grottos, where a pool of water that rose from deep underground kept it naturally cooler, and found what he was looking for at its bottom, hidden in the sand.

The first swallow was bitter as piss, but the next went down only with a sensation of warmth and a lovely light sensation in his head. He gulped the rest, disappointed that the bottle was dry in a mere minute, and thrust his hand back into the water. Satisfaction flooded his body along with the alcohol when he discovered another bottle, and reverently he uncorked it, staring at the amber fluid.

_A person can be boiled…_

He guzzled.

…_from the inside…_

_

* * *

_Most of the children were sleeping by the time Zuko returned. The bandages on his leg were wet with blood, and he was covered in new grime, but he held up two freshly killed turkey-deer by their limp necks to Toph with a grin. She'd finished the pile of mending and was relaxing, keeping one foot on the ground to monitor the kids while she soaked the other in the river. She judged his spoils by the alteration in his weight and offered a grunt of approval.

"Where's Sokka?"

"What, you think _he's_ going to help you clean those? You're funny." She indicated the grotto at the back of the cavern with a flick of her foot. "I think he passed out an hour ago." Her tone softened. "How's your leg?"

"Worse."

"Duh."

Zuko lowered himself with difficulty beside her at the river's edge, and carefully peeled off his boots and pants. Dipping his feet in the river, he began to skin his kill, firebending as he went along to cook it. The scent of cooked meat slowly filled the cavern, but when the children who were still awake saw it was coming from Zuko, none of them bothered to venture over. Toph stamped and a backrest materialized behind him, which he immediately leaned into.

"Thanks."

A moment of silence before she replied. "We're a mess," she said thoughtfully. "We're not fit to raise kids."

"We're not raising them, really. We're just looking after them, until – "

"Until what? Half of their families are dead, the other half scattered to all ends of the world. The least we can do is get them placed into foster homes so that they're not living like savages anymore. That's why I'm going to start teaching them earthbending."

Zuko glanced over to where Shong and Rann were playfully wrestling in the water, near-naked. "They seem to enjoy living like savages."

"So does our group leader," she shot back pointedly. "He should have gone after you. Instead he gets wasted. And…"

Finishing, Zuko shifted his weight a little bit and lay down, exhausted, idly wondering what would happen if he fell asleep in his current position. "That's none of our business."

"I know." She turned sightless eyes toward the children, and curled her toes on the stone floor, in a gesture of helpless concern.

"Sokka? Sok-ka?"

Two hours from drunkenness, one or so from passing out, Sokka forced himself awake at the sound of someone calling his name. He took a deep breath and craned his head upward, groaning at the way his head ached. It appeared to be some of the boys. They tugged at his tunic, shoved him upright, sniffing curiously at the empty bottles. He gathered enough wits about him to chuck the bottles back into the pool and waved them away. "Sokka's tired. Go to bed."

"_Uncle_ Sokka." It was their pet name for him, used slyly (so they thought) when they really wanted something that they knew they shouldn't or couldn't have. It made him feel good in spite of his overwhelming determination to wallow in the devastation of his memories. "We can't sleep. Tell us a story." As his eyes adjusted, Sokka noted that Shong seemed to be the ringleader, which wasn't surprising. Laying back down, he closed his eyes again and waved for them to leave.

"Tell Toph to tell you a story."

"She won't do it; she'd just tell us to shut up and then wrestle us back into bed. Besides…Zuko's back." Shong pronounced the name with exaggerated suspicion.

"Yeah!"

"They're busy talking," whined a third boy.

"Okay, okay. One story, and then you – " he sat up and blinked rapidly, trying to focus on all of them at once while simultaneously willing the room to stop spinning " – and then you all go to sleep, okay?"

They nodded solemnly.

He drew a deep breath, pulling from his rote bank of stories, knowing they'd wouldn't mind if he'd already told it twice, ten, a thousand times. They exchanged excited glances, wondering what new details they would manage to coax out of him in his compromised state. Though they had no clear conception of _alcohol_ or _drunkenness_, they knew that when Sokka was alone for awhile and then went to sleep he became much more fun than he usually was. (It was when he was alone and then came back, staggering, that there was to be trouble.) Shong caught Enki's gaze and they nodded at each other conspiratorially; they'd judged the situation correctly this time.

"Once upon a time, there was a boy who was the Avatar…"

* * *

"…and his name was Aang." It was the first time she had spoken his name in years. Amit had not asked for a story, but she spoke more to hear the sound of herself, a being moving through the dark forests, alone yet alive. It reminded her, more than the granite-flecked soil beneath her feet, more than the creepers which tore at her robes, that she existed now and had existed in a time before this one. He lay on her back, arms draped limply about her neck and silent except for the sound of his breathing, which murmured in her ear like the far-off roar of the ocean.

Suddenly he spoke, surprising her as his lips brushed her neck when they moved. She shivered, lost her footing , and then recovered. "This was the Avatar you've told us about."

"Yes." Conscious of her vulnerability, she moved more slowly, watching her footing.

"He was your friend."

"Yes. But he was more than that." Katara remembered that she had an obligation to present all of the details in a way that a child who might turn out to be the next Avatar would understand, would accept. "He had a duty to end the war – "

"There was no war separate from him."

"I don't understand." The sun had descended hours ago, and she made her way in the dark by instinct. The forest gave off a complex, gorgeous scent. Though she was sure of her path, she felt lost, confused, helpless. The ability of so young a one to unhinge her completely made itself felt as a physical pain.

"The war is us. It is our very selves," he elaborated, no less cryptically, and then fell into his habitual silence.

"Is it you?" she whispered, but the rhythm of his breathing had become somnolent.

A soft rain began to fall, and several droplets streaked her face before she used one free hand to waterbend cover around them. Admixed with her tears, the rain tasted of suffering.

She propelled herself onward into the damp, velvet night.


	4. Hunter

_I'm hunger. I'm thirst. Where I bite, I hold till I die, and even after death they must cut out my mouthful from my enemy's body and bury it with me. I can fast a hundred years and not die. I can lie a hundred nights on the ice and not freeze. I can drink a river of blood and not burst. Show me your enemies._

- C. Lewis

Face and hands to the ground he tracked them, making no sound, barely registering as a part separate from the forests through which he moved. When forest began to thin and the ground became thin and rocky, and when he could smell the sea, he paused and finally stood upright, looking like a seal-wolf on its hind paws, less man than animal.

Black eyes gleamed dully in the fading afternoon light. The lower half of his face was totally concealed behind a scarf dyed deep red, signaling his compliance with the recent ordinance that all subjects display their allegiance to the Phoenix King by wearing crimson, the royal color. Though his posture was hunched, it was that of a predator, not an elderly man. His feet were bare, and filthy.

He sniffed the air. Critically he surveyed the long shore below, noting the few ramshackle houses on the beach, the fishing boats coming in from the bay. Human interaction was not his greatest strength, but gold spoke all tongues.

It took half an hour before he found a fisherman willing to take him in his wind-propelled craft. The man looked him up and down, taking him for a commoner by the color of his skin, poor dress, and short, braided topknot, and was about to refuse until he produced a leather purse and showed him the color of true status.

The weather was fair, and the man's turtle-eels, hooked to a peculiar rigging, pulled them most of the way. Even so, it was in the heat of the next midday that they finally landed. The fisherman tried to pry conversation out of the younger man, but he might have been conversing with a stone. He perched on a coil of rope and gazed out at the horizon, unblinking, like a snake. With the scarf obscuring half of his face, his expression was decidedly unreadable.

When the shore was not two miles off, the young man extracted the promised gold and set it down silently, and, arching his long arms over his head, dove into the water. Shocked, the fisherman ran to the rail and looked over into the bright water, seeing the young man swimming in a steady, razor-straight line for the beach. He cried out something in surprise, but it was lost on the stiff midday breeze.

The water was cold and filled his ears with a pleasant rushing not unlike silence, temporarily cancelling the near-constant buzzing at the base of his skull. Jaw open, he allowed the saltwater filter through the scarf and flow over his teeth and tongue. He would have breathed it if he could.

Suddenly the sand of the beach seemed to rise up to receive him, and he clambered ashore on all fours, shaking the excess water from his skin. The sunlight was pleasantly warm, and briefly he entertained the idea of lying on the sun-warmed sand to dry himself; but looking back out to sea he could see the threat of a storm approaching in the roil of dark gray clouds that moved startlingly fast across the sky. It was, after all, the rainy season.

He stood and re-adjusted his scarf, tying it securely and tucking the knot into the neck of his shirt. Reaching behind him, he ensured that his hook swords were still fastened into their holsters and allowed an unseen grin to seize hold of his features. Drawing one, Jet used its balance to orient himself, envisioning the hunt before him. He shivered with anticipation.

_I'm coming for you._

_

* * *

_"I said hold _firm_!" Toph whirled where she stood, stamping hard, and Enki shot several feet into the air before crashing back down to land on his already-sore behind. "Earthbending requires focus and discipline." She crossed her arms over her chest, directing her blank gaze to the midst of them. "Anyone who's not cut out for it can quit now."

Several of the children exchanged guilty looks, as if considering it. Nearby, Sokka was scratching out an inventory on a piece of faded parchment, and Zuko was positioned awkwardly in a low-slung hammock, scraping a hide clean.

It had been a week since they'd arrived at the hideout, and in the interim Sokka had trekked to the nearest town and replenished their supplies, while Toph began to instruct the children in earthbending. At first they'd been eager and excited to learn, but as the week dragged on they grew deflated, whining about missing Katara and how they wanted to be allowed to play. Toph had stamped out – literally – any such talk, but they still grumbled, as ten year olds will.

"This is why I said she shouldn't waste her time," Sokka remarked, not lifting his eyes from his calculations.

"They were pretty stubborn when you wanted to teach the ones who couldn't to read and write," Zuko reminded him. "In fact, I think they were probably worse."

"Only because I didn't rough them up when they complained."

Toph paused in the slow circle she was making around the group, monitoring their form and stances as she went, and correcting here and there with flicks of her heel that made the ground jump and tremble. She paused behind one of the girls, Tanith, and announced,

"Now we're going to try earthbending."

The exhausted class suddenly seemed to perk up. A few of them broke their stances, and Toph slammed her foot back down, knocking the ones who had done so over. Zuko swore between clenched teeth – each time she earthbent the floor, his leg erupted in a new burst of agony. Though it was considerably duller than it had been earlier in the week, the pain still took his breath away. Sokka worried that the wound would become infected, and demanded that they change the dressings each day, only adding to Zuko's discomfort. He was distracted for the moment, however, by the prospect of finally bringing this part of their journey to a close. In the silence that followed, all three were distinctly aware of the possibility:

_The Avatar may be among us. _

The earthbender shot out one iron fist. "Lift your dominant foot."

The children obeyed as one.

"Knee bent. Lift as high as you can. Arms held out, palms down. When I say, bring it down, like this -

" she demonstrated with a stamp that set the cavern trembling, her arms coming down slowly at the same time as her foot, thrusting the palms toward the floor " – and resume your horse stance. Feel yourself command the earth. Match its unmovable strength with your own." Slowly she held out her arm again. A tense pause. Zuko found himself holding his breath, and even Sokka, though he pretended disinterest, was watching out of the corner of his eye as he pored over the parchments in front of him.

"Now."

In unison, the children brought their small, bare feet down.

The cavern shuddered and rang. Toph swept both feet and hands around slowly to prevent the falling of several stalactites as a colony of spider-bats took flight. Zuko sought out each child's expression individually, trying to discern which of them had done it, but it was impossible – they all looked surprised or triumphant, or a combination of both. Small chests heaved with pride, and the identifying tattoos on the boys' bare backs rippled with the movement. The two young men exchanged incredulous glances.

Toph, on the other hand, was grinning. "Very well done," she offered – high praise from a stern taskmaster. "Take a break and get some water." As the children scattered, chattering among themselves excitedly, she reminded them, "Only the water Zuko's boiled – the stuff in the skins! Quit drinking from the river." So saying, she rejoined the two others, her chest visibly puffed out with satisfaction. They waited for her to say something, but she only swiped the piece of dried meat Sokka had been occasionally nibbling on and began to munch contentedly.

Sokka gestured impatiently. "Well? Which one was it?"

Taking her time, she folded her legs below her, sightless eyes the color of jade half-closed with smug contentment. "_One_?"

"What are you – "

Catching on to her meaning, Zuko interrupted the frustrated Water tribesman. "How many?"

Toph held up four fingers on her free hand, thumb folded into her palm. "Sulati. Tanith. Firat. Shong."

"How is that possible?"

"Maybe there are meant to be multiple reincarnations of the Avatar this time," she suggested around a mouthful of jerky.

"The explanation doesn't have to be anything that complex; it just has to be plausible." Sokka looked unusually thoughtful. "What if they can just…bend?"

"They're children of the Water tribe. That they can waterbend isn't surprising. But earthbending?"

"Careful, Zuko. You're starting to sound like a separatist," Toph chortled, amused by her own joke. From the slightly strangled expression on Zuko's face, Sokka judged that he had taken it more personally than she had intended. Carefully, he ground out,

"Just because my father endorses that kind of propaganda doesn't mean it's true."

Sokka jumped in, hurrying the conversation along before it got too heated. "Aang believed it too – that the four nations were all one people. How do we know? Maybe the bending of one element isn't limited to a particular part of the world. After all, who would bother trying to teach earthbending to waterbenders?"

"Me!" She held out the gnawed piece of jerky to both of them in turn, but they shook their heads. Zuko turned away with an expression of disgust, clearly disengaged from the conversation. "Don't be such a pair of wet blankets. This is something to celebrate!"

"No, it's not. Now we have no way of knowing which one is the Avatar; we're in the same position as we were a week ago." Zuko jammed the knife he'd been using into the unyielding hide.

They were silent. Finally, Toph uncrossed her legs and leaned forward. "There is a way."

"How?"

"Remember how difficult it was for Aang to learn earthbending?" Not bothering to wait for Sokka's agreement, she continued, "Some of them might be able to learn earthbending, but their original element is water. So the most difficult for them to learn will be – "

" – firebending," Sokka finished for her. They both looked to Zuko, who was still silent and brooding.

"What?" He loathed himself for the reluctance he felt and the way he snapped at them, but simultaneously felt himself unable to control his tempestuous emotions.

"You could teach them to firebend." It was Sokka who voiced the thought, but even as he did so he stared dutifully at the ground, turning the parchment over in his hands. Toph sighed almost unintelligibly, crossing her arms in a display of impatience and drumming her foot on the ground, making it shake.

Zuko controlled his rising anger through a series of deep breaths, thinking over how to respond. "It's not my choice."

Sensing his anger, and adding it to her own frustration, Toph ground out, "That's right. It's not."

Silence. She rose and kicked the ground once more, purposefully jostling his leg, and daring him to say something about it with her aggressive stance, lower lip thrust out, legs tensed for a fight – physical or verbal. When he refused to rise to her bait, she marched away, yelling for the children to re-group near her. Slowly, Sokka gathered up his things and followed her. The firebender watched them go, feeling the heat rise to his clenched palms.

_Breathe. Breathe. _The years in prison had not taught him forbearance, as one might expect. Azula ensured that he was placed in the filthiest, neglected, underfunded place for common civilian prisoners – not traitors to the crown or war criminals, where he might have been more at home – and housed with the general population. The scar on his face marked him out as weak, and he had been consistently preyed upon by the older male inhabitants of the prison. Azula sought to control him with long sessions of torture and oblique threats about the wellbeing of Iroh and Mai, but eventually his mind and body had become so deadened that none of it mattered.

Zuko shook the memory off, unwilling to compound his current anger, and the throbbing pain in his leg, with the ache of old wounds. He found himself missing Katara, and the easy balance that she brought to the adults of the group, but viciously he attacked such thoughts as they arose, seeking to eliminate any trace of inner weakness. Sokka was a drunkard, and his mind was gone. Whatever half-brained theory he had concocted, Zuko knew that none of the children were going to be able to firebend – he would have bet his life on it. Privately he agreed with Katara about her guess on the Avatar's next incarnation, and awaited her return with Amit to risk his next move.

_Until then_, he thought, forcing his own compliance for the sake of daily re-earning the others' trust, _I'll humor them._

_

* * *

_

Jet tracked and found the giant beast easily; its stench pervaded the delicate, newly washed scent of spring on the air, and (unfortunately for it, but fortunately for him) seemed to be trying to avoid flight. Its masters couldn't be far from where it had chosen to nest – a mossy clearing near the ocean. The fine rain that had started to fall gave him adequate cover as he stole up behind it downwind to avoid detection. It was resting, massive head on cumbersome paws, but the muscles in its thick hide were tensed, visible even at the distance at which he stood. As he shifted, readying his swords, the beast clambered to its feet and cast about nervously. Unable to find an object for its anxieties, it opened its jaws and gave a warning roar that shook the trees, and birds took flight from the surrounding forest.

In the moment before it paused again to listen, Jet took off running and made a flying leap, landing squarely on the air bison's back.

The great animal roared and bucked with the shock, gathering its feet close together before launching itself into the air. The air seemed to tighten and flatten around Jet, the rain which had been falling in a steady drizzle suddenly quickening to an aggressive downpour. Briefly a sensation of dizziness overwhelmed him, but he clung to the thick wet fur with the tenacity of one starving mongrel at another's throat.

Appa dove into a downward spiral, making his skin shudder in an attempt to throw his attacker off, and roaring ferociously as he did so. As quickly as he dared, Jet made his way, hand over hand, until he was positioned just behind the air bison's curved horns. In desperation, the creature headed for the ocean, snapping its thick tail to increase its speed.

Just before it dove again, Jet freed his right arm, angled his hook sword back and downward, and plunged it deep into its throat. Its roar became frenzied, its cries bringing forth great gouts of blood and froth. As they headed on a collision course with the rocky beach, Jet yanked his hook sword free and drew back both hands, angling the swords in a crossed pattern before stabbing them deeply toward one another. The swords sank deep into the bison's flesh, inciting another deep groan, and he gripped them tightly as makeshift handholds as they went down.

The beast hit the beach hard and skidded twenty feet before coming to a rest. Not bothering to extract his swords again, Jet leapt free before it stopped. He watched dispassionately as it struggled to rise on caterpillar-like legs, stumbled a few paces, and then fell. Its breathing was grossly loud through the gaping hole in its thick neck, and each movement brought forth more blood of a dark red color like wine, staining its light coat.

As Jet approached he felt its large eyes upon him, and he held himself tense just in case the monster had more fight left in him. When it did not move, however, he came closer and nimbly leapt up to the back of its neck. Steadying his grip on his hook swords, Jet wrenched them around, hearing the sickening tearing noise they made in the air bison's neck, and wriggled them free of its layers of fat and muscle. He shook them once, noting with pleasure how the spatters of blood made a fine spray over Appa's coat, and bringing one to his mouth he ran his tongue sideways down its length, tasting the bitter, metallic fluid. A tide of blood rushed over his feet, coating his bare feet in gory warmth. The creature was dying.

Carefully he climbed back down, sheathing his swords and withdrawing a straight, long-bladed knife from within his garments. Though a film had begun to descend over its large, intelligent eyes, and though it choked and burbled on its own heartblood, the bison still watched his every move, its expression eloquent. Jet gazed back and saw that he was reflected in one of its dark brown orbs. Suddenly desperate at the sight of his own reflection, he reached up and tore away his scarf, allowing one beast to behold another.

Its eyes lolled back. Dropping its great jaw, the air bison spat forth one last cry, laced with pain and blood, and died, ichor staining the sand black. Jet went to work with knife and fingers, hacking off horns, prying out teeth, and finally, starting with a wide slit down the roof of the mouth, skinning it. The tide was coming steadily in and he knew it would be a long job, but he worked tirelessly, satisfied with the crown of his savagery, and anointed in blood.


	5. Memory

Sokka was into his third bottle and had passed the apex of good-feeling, and was now steadily plummeting into the yawning crevasse within himself. Images whirled past in the void, calling up painful memories, reaching for him. Tossing and turning on the stone floor, he prayed for oblivion, his stomach burning with the fiery liquid, his chest aching. _If Katara were here…_

She'd reprimand silently, with her eyes, take away the third bottle before he finished it, drag him into his furs and watch the children herself the rest of the night, taking care that they did not see him so degraded by his own stupidity. But she was not there, and he suffered for it.

Often the alcohol brought the opposite of relief – vivid, complex dreams in which he failed again and again to save her life, in which he watched the grotesque spectacle of her death over and over – as it had happened, and as it had not happened. His imagination seized upon his grief and complicated it, made it play out in an array of horrible tragedies.

None of the fantasies matched the reality. None could even come close.

He moaned as the memory besieged him, pulling frantically at the neck of the bottle but succeeding only in choking himself as he coughed and spat out the rice wine.

_The Fire princess, now Firelady, stood before and over him, regarding him with as little interest as one might look upon a piece of spoiled meat. They were in an interrogation room in the prison-caverns deep below Omashu. Her team of assassins had discovered the crèche that Sokka and a few others had been guarding, and he had gone intentionally and willingly into their hands so that the rest could escape._

_In those years, no one could be sure of the others' exact whereabouts. Sokka and the other young warriors had been split up among those crèches which needed them most. They communicated occasionally by messenger hawk, but it was usually too dangerous to attempt. Sokka knew that Katara was with the crèche hidden deep in the Foggy Swamp, but no more than that. He'd last seen Suki six months earlier. Toph was rumored to have found some fantastic hiding spot on what had used to be Fire Nation territory, but it was only talk. His father, for all he knew, was dead in the massacre of Ba Sing Se._

"_I have nothing left to lose." Sokka glared at Azula malevolently through a curtain of matted, bloody hair. His left arm hung uselessly at his side, the bone of the forearm having been snapped in two, and every time he breathed he could feel the shallow wound on his gut, calculated for maximum pain and minimum lasting damage, open and weep. The Firelady looked at him with a mixture of contempt and raw pleasure._

"_There's always something left to lose, as long as you're alive." One perfectly manicured nail gestured suggestively at his crotch. "Beginning perhaps with that, and ending with your life itself. But we needn't be so drastic...yet." Stepping closer, her eyes narrowed, as if she scented out the information that she wanted. "Tell us where your water rat sister is, and we'll let you keep that. And those."_

"_Rot in hell," he hissed back at her without hesitation. He would have spat at her if his mouth wasn't so dry._

_Azula's expression did not change. "Very well." Without turning, she gestured to one of the prison guards. "Bring her in."_

_His senses were too overwhelmed, flooded with pain and anxiety, to react at hearing her words. But the sight of Suki, bound and gagged and dragged in across the stone floor, was enough to shock him back into awareness. Her wide, brown eyes were even wider with fear, and her pupils dilated either with adrenaline or the aid of a drug. Peripherally his brain was aware of the rusty stains down her thighs and on her face, but his mind would not allow him to process the information fully._

_She had been moaning softly through her gag as they yanked her across the floor, but when she saw Sokka she stopped, and her expression changed from despairing to pleading. _

"_Let her go," he forced out through teeth clenched so hard they threatened to crumble. _You bitch, you bitch, you heinous bitch.

"_That's not my decision," she said airily, as if she were discussing the weather. She crossed the small room to where her chair (wrought in rubies and gold, even here) awaited and sat down, waving the guards out of the room. On the floor, Suki desperately shook her head back and forth, ignoring the sharp rocks that dug into her cheeks. "I'm sick of searching for a needle in a haystack when I know that needle is attached to a thread, allowing me to pick it out more easily." Her smile widened, like a serpent before it swallows its prey. "Your sister is that thread. I know the Avatar is with her. Tell me where she is, and I'll spare her life, and yours."_

_It was clear that the 'her' referred to Suki, and there was no such promise being made about Katara's safety. Sokka knew that his sister would gladly give her life to protect the lives of the Water tribe children, and he knew that Azula knew it, too. He remembered what his sister had told him about her conversation with Zuko in the caverns below Ba Sing Se: "Azula always lies." If her own brother, a treacherous snake in his own right, did not trust her, what chance did they have? She was the daughter of the Phoenix King, the monster who had murdered Aang and then burnt half of the former Earth Kingdom to the ground. _

_All the while he remained silent, Suki had been shaking her head back and forth, fresh tears, and now blood, streaming down her cheeks. His mind, glazed over by the terrible choice with which he was faced, had shut off the valve on the flood of memories which threatened to overwhelm him. Her face, her voice, her lips, her skin, the smell of her hair. The war had taken even the chance for Sokka to be by her side, much less know her intimately beyond gropes and fumbling while the others had been asleep at night, in the days when Aang was still with them._

_Seemingly growing impatient, Azula gestured sharply at Suki, and the lower half of her face erupted into flame. Sokka lurched forward, a scream wrangled out of his throat, and stopped short when he saw that she was unhurt – Azula had only burnt away the dirty, sodden gag._

"_You have a minute to make a decision."_

"_Sokka," she choked out, lips curling into a pained but beatific smile._

"_Suki," he answered, straining against the chains that bound him._

_She swallowed hard, shutting her eyes briefly before opening them again. "I'm so glad you're alive."_

"_Hopefully he'll remain that way," Azula interjected, examining the nails on one hand. _

_He ignored her, trying to communicate as much with his eyes and body as he could with his voice. "I can't do this."_

"_Sokka, you have to. Be strong, okay? I'll always be with you, no matter what happens."_

"_No." Not again. "Katara can take care of herself. She'll be okay."_

"_You can't take that risk," she protested, her voice rising hysterically. Still her expression was gentle, beseeching him. "What about the children with her? My life isn't worth that much."_

"_Of course it is!" _

"_Listen to what you're saying," she said, enunciating each word carefully. "You can't sacrifice their lives for mine. Even if you wanted to, we can't trust her. She'd still kill the both of us – for nothing at all. " Her earnest expression suddenly twisted in a hideous grimace. Sokka could feel the scream she was holding back. He looked over at Azula, who had her fingers twisted in a peculiar motion._

"_It seems I made an error in judgment when I loosened her tongue," she said in reply to his angry, demanding glare. "I've now corrected that error."_

_He shot a glance at Suki. Her eyes and mouth were clamped shut, her head thrown back in pain, tears and sweat making her face glisten in the low light. _

"_Do you know it's a barbarian custom to cut off the tongues of liars and false prophets?" The Firelady sighed. "Of course you do – you were raised inside a tent on the godforsaken tundra."_

_It was as if he had been yanked out of his body, and briefly he saw himself, a snarling figure straining against his chains, his teeth bared like the dog Azula thought him to be. She threw back her head and laughed. _

"_Unless you want the rest of her to go the way of her tongue, you'll tell me where your sister – and the Avatar – are." Blood-red tongue flickered over beautiful lips in a paroxysm of excitement from the otherwise tightly controlled Firelady. _She doesn't want me to tell her_, Sokka realized._

"_No." _She wants to kill her.

"_Your choice," Azula repeated, but already was lifting her hands, twisting her fingers._

"_Suki – I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," he babbled desperately, choking on bile and saliva and tears, blood and sweat._

"_I forgive you," she answered immediately, smiling through her trembling and tears. "It's okay, I for – " The words caught in her throat. A strange, strangulated expression replaced her smile, and her eyes lost their focus on him as her entire body became rigid, twitched once, and then twitched again. She lay as if in a religious thrall as her skin slowly turned a deepening shade of red, like a spined lobster cooking, and then began to turn black. _

"_SUKI!"_

_His scream caused her to focus on him one last time before the unimaginable pain seized her. She died that way – her eyes upon him, her expression inscrutable, as her body was consumed by flames from the inside out. Blood poured from her eyes, nose, mouth and ears and boiled away from the extreme heat. _

_He screamed until he was hoarse, pausing only to vomit black blood. Azula roasted her until her skin was cinders and drifted away, settling on him. The smell of burning flesh and hair was unbearably sickening. When he had finally collapsed in total exhaustion, he heard her oily voice out of the darkness:_

"_Isn't it beautiful? My own technique – simply turn the body's chi against itself. I believe there have been cases in which it was referred to as 'spontaneous human combustion.' An elegant term, but the first adjective is slightly misleading." As she came into view, he realized with horror that she was hefting and examining a bloodied and charred femur. Slapping the weight of it into her opposite palm, she bent down._

"_Now. You'll tell me where your sister is."_

NO!

"Sokka." Hands were shaking him awake. Sitting bolt upright, pain both physical and imagined ripping through him, he retched violently. He felt someone steadying him about the shoulders, and, when the wave of sickness passed, bathe his face with cool water.

"Katara…?" he slurred, reaching out for her.

"It's me." Zuko's voice was flat. "Can you sit up?"

It was a struggle merely to breathe. "N-no."

Stooping down, Zuko seized him about the chest. He heard the firebender hiss through his teeth in pain as he propped Sokka's limp body against a rock outcropping. His head lolled to the side and what little he could see of the room spun before him.

"Drink this." A carved bone bowl was pressed into his hands and guided to his mouth. He lapped thirstily at it – water as cold as stone. He wondered at Zuko's sudden kindness, but his mind was too tired to follow his thoughts to their conclusion.

It had been Zuko who rescued him from Azula years later. Having been in his sister's clutches much longer, Sokka imagined the kind of horror he must have suffered, but the two never spoke of it.

Faintly he could hear the former prince moving around him, cleaning up. Out of one swollen eye he saw Zuko find the bottles hidden in the bottom of the pool and begin to uncork and pour them out one by one. Too defeated to care, Sokka closed his eyes.

* * *

"The source of firebending is in the breath. You orient your whole being around the stream of breath which both feeds your body and acts as your center." Zuko inhaled deeply through his nostrils to demonstrate, then exhaled, filling his chest cavity with a stream of superheated air.

"I don't see any fire," Shong pointed out.

"The fire is constantly at your disposal. You maintain it, as one would an external fire, except you feed it not with wood but with your spirit. It's not something separate from you; it's within your very self."

Tanith, the tallest girl of all the children, shrugged her bony shoulders. "Now you're sounding like Amit."

"It's like airbending," volunteered Firat.

"What do you mean?"

"I've only studied the scrolls at the Northern Air Temple, but…" The small boy paused, brow furrowed in thought. He was much darker than the other children, and strange occult tattoos, whorls and spikes and rune characters, barely discernable from the rest of his skin, covered his bare chest and shoulders. Apparently his mother thought they would protect his life, and had tattooed him herself when he was only a baby. Several of the other children sported similar markings, and Sokka's whole neck had been covered in the bizarre designs, creeping over his chin and jawbones. In the former Fire Nation, they were the signs of a criminal or an outcast, and it had taken Zuko some time to control his conditioned reflex of disgust. With concentrated effort, he forced himself to focus on the boy's words.

"…they said that the airbenders concentrated on the flow of air, both inside and outside. They pictured themselves as conduits between the air outside and the air inside. There is air everywhere on the planet," Firat recited. "We need only remove ourselves as the-thing-which-blocks."

"Mumbo-jumbo," Shong declared. "Let's see some firebending!"

Zuko noted how Sulati trembled at the larger boy's exhortation, and nervously re-arranged the scarf over her missing eyes.

"Fire can be extremely dangerous. All of you know that well. For a real firebender – a good one – there is nothing more important than your responsibility to ensure that the fire you bend does not do unnecessary harm."

Tanith and Shong exchanged an eyeroll.

"If you do not, this is the result." Zuko placed one hand over his scarred eye and watched the children's uneasy reaction. All of them, the adults included, took pains to avoid discussion or mention of Zuko's past or the scar which conjured its memory. "And worse."

The three glanced at Sulati, but remained silent.

"Fire is also life," he continued after a pause, remembering his uncle's teachings and offering, as was his custom, a prayer for his safety or the rest of his spirit – Zuko had no way of knowing which was appropriate at this point. So saying, he threw his head back and exhaled again, blowing a small flickering flame in the direction of the noonday sun. He felt the children's approval. "Outside, you can all feel the warmth of the sun. It brings life to the earth, to the water, to the air. Without it, the other elements become cold and barren."

Silence. Zuko shifted, bringing his gaze back down, and found that they were listening attentively, even respectfully. He decided to risk it.

"Hold out your hands palms up, one over the other. Form the shape of wings unfolding. Now tilt your heads back, and breathe, as I did, meditating on the sun."

They complied as he instructed. Tanith and Firat closed their eyes, but Shong squinted defiantly into the blazing orb. As he passed by them, he felt the tension in their bodies. Discreetly, he conjured a small flame in one hand, and once several minutes had passed, tried to transfer control of it into each of their hands in turn. Though Sulati shook violently, she did not break her stance; Firat in particular seemed deep in concentration, biting his lower lip as Zuko paused in front of him.

When he had reached the last child, he let the flame expire, shaking his head. None of them had been able to sustain even a wisp of smoke.

"You've done well," he praised. "Do as you please with the rest of the day."

With the exception of Shong they bowed respectfully before clumping together and hurrying back underground, whispering together. Zuko followed them at a slower pace, ruminating.

The time had come to foster out the children – or, at very least the nine of them who could not earthbend. Likely it would mean that they would be split among the guardians, once Katara returned. It would be a radical change to the way of life they had all grown used to, as dangerous and ephemeral as it had been.

Their official story to any person they met was that they were a group of mendicant monks, guiding the children in completing their first spiritual journey. Sokka and Zuko were their warrior escorts. This was the reason given for the extensive tattooing, shaven pates, and elaborate piercings that the children sported. They had been instructed in religious songs and prayers to further authenticate their story. Whenever they met with combat, the children donned long robes which hid their distinguishing features. Thus far, the ruse had worked – or, it seemed to. Unwilling to believe anything easily, Zuko shuddered slightly as he remembered when Sokka had suggested that he burn the other half of his face as well, eliminating his high visibility. Katara had rebuked him for it, but Zuko had considered it seriously, if only for a moment.

Now that they were to be separated, Zuko once again had to consider his options even more carefully. He had learned as a child that it was unwise to fully trust anyone, and so too that one must keep one's thoughts and options carefully hidden. When he was younger he had been rash, and had not heeded. His mouth twisted, remembering his younger self. _I've paid – and learned well._

His reverie was interrupted by Toph's voice, calling to him from one ill-lit corner of the smaller caverns that the adults used as their quarters. Zuko had to pass her quarters, closest to the children's, in order to get to his own.

"Can you give me a hand?" From behind the screen of rock, one small hand held out a well-worn piece of fabric and waved it around playfully.

Zuko complied out of habit, limping over, his eyes respectfully averted in spite of her blindness. In her makeshift dressing-room, Toph was naked to the waist, her skin still damp from a bath. He took the piece of fabric from her and unrolled it completely, shaking it to smooth out the wrinkles. Usually she enlisted Katara's help, but she evidently had no compunction in switching the one out for the other.

"How's it going?" She asked him, lifting her arms as he began to twine the cloth around her chest. Her breasts were small and high-set, but still she bound them, claiming that it helped her keep her balance. It was also a useful part of their ruse – Toph easily passed for a young man, and her light skin marked her out as leader of the group of young 'monks.' This close, he could smell her particular odor, like damp soil. It neither attracted nor repelled him, arousing only a faint curiosity about how she managed to smell like dirt even after bathing.

"There's been no progress," he reported. "I seriously doubt that any of them are capable."

"Tighter!" she exhorted as he twisted the bindings round for a third time, and drew in a shaky breath as he complied. "Well, we expected that, didn't we?"

He grunted noncommittally in response, finishing the binding by tucking it in and then summoning heat to his fingers which melded the fibers of the fabric together. Toph's eyes widened slightly, and then she nodded with satisfied approval. "Pretty decent job for a spoiled Fire Nation brat."

"You're welcome."

"While I'm thanking you, ah – " she jerked her head in the general direction of Sokka's quarters before kneeling to gather the rest of her clothes. " – thanks for that, too. I thought with Katara gone it might be me who'd have to deal with him. And, well, I'm glad it's not."

He shook his head. "I wasn't about to let _that_ happen again."

She crossed her arms over her chest, purposefully flexing her biceps. "As if _I_ would."

"I suppose not. But I didn't think that she'd let it happen, either."

Her gaze even more vacant than it was usually, Toph sighed, mumbling something that sounded like: "She has her reasons," before shrugging and demolishing her temporary dressing chamber with a lazy stamp.

"How's your leg?"

Reflexively Zuko reached down and touched it gingerly, as if to test it. "Getting better."

"We had a messenger mole earlier today. Seems Chong and the others are passing nearby, and they're going to take three of the kids off our hands." Toph hesitated. "I can't see sending him as he has been, and I'd go, but if someone finds us here, I have to be with the rest of them…"

"I'll go."

Anticipating a positive response, Toph reached out and gave him an affectionate whack on the shoulder that resounded through his entire body and set his injured leg to throbbing. Outwardly he groaned, but inwardly his mind raced, desperately attempting to quell his quickening heartbeat.

His opportunity had come.

* * *

At the first sign of someone trailing them, Katara had slowed, doubling back over her tracks, trying to get a glimpse of their pursuer. He or she was elusive, and only the slightest alterations in the landscape proved that there was another human being besides them in the forest. Refusing to be pushed, Katara deliberately set out on a jagged path which brought them nowhere near to the caverns. After a full day and a half with no sign of losing their pursuer, she was nearly at her limit. Carefully she chose a grove which would afford them back cover and was near a small stream with a steady supply of water, and then turned around. Amit's presence on her back brought their two heartbeats into the flow of one, and gave her strength. When she had judged that she waited long enough, she looked upward and spoke.

"Show yourself," she demanded, her mouth dry. "I won't lead you to what you're seeking; I'll die first, and you with me."

A curtain of leaves parted over their heads, and she crouched in a battle stance, stepping back to get a good purchase on the tracker. He dropped nimbly to the forest floor and then stood upright, gazing at them. Though he was strangely clad, in a mixture of crimsons and patchy hides, and a full armor suit which looked as if it had been wrought from solid bone, and though the lower half of his face was concealed, there was no mistaking the eyes, nor the stance.

"Jet." Years of experience had honed her reflexes; where she might have been shocked previously, she now felt only a dull apprehension. "We thought you were dead."

"I was." The way he blinked, with the corners of his eyes crinkling, he might have been smiling, or grimacing.

"He is fallen," Amit breathed into her ear. "Come away."

"I don't understand," she said, taking another step toward him. "When we left you in Ba Sing Se – "

He was moving toward her too, reaching up to tug down the scarf, and she swore she could see a smile beginning at the corners of his eyes…

"_Katara!_"

She froze. Aang. It was Aang's voice, Aang's breath on her neck, Aang's hands clasped at the base of her throat. So positive was she that she could not bear to turn her head around to face him; so sure was she that she barely noticed as Jet covered the distance between them in a series of bounds and struck at her heart.


	6. Rebirth

The earth beneath their feet split apart like a scroll rent asunder. Katara was thrown one way, Jet another, and she no longer felt the familiar weight of Amit on her back. Desperately she threw herself against the thick trunk of a falling tree, clinging slothlike to its branches. Jet had recovered from his surprise and was likewise grappling up the opposite side of the ditch that had been formed out of the earth, using his hook swords to gain purchase, but as he did so the ground beneath him liquefied, becoming sand; no sooner had he sank up to his chest than it re-hardened, effectively trapping him. He struggled to twist around and behold his attacker, but it was a fruitless effort.

Still in shock, Katara shuddered when a hand was placed on her shoulder, then limply accepted the assistance. When she had been pulled onto safe ground, she beheld him.

For the first time she felt the true weight of all the years that had passed. The Aang she had known, that still survived in her mind, had no age; he had grown with her and not, his enduring memory changing as she herself had changed. The figure before her, though, was only a few feet taller than Amit. She towered over him. Her body felt warped, ruined. _He's only a child._

His figure was ghostly, flickering. Still he smiled, close-lipped, gently, and reached one hand out to caress hers. The small fingers barely fit around the circumference of her hand, but his expression was that of an elder. As she struggled to form the words to address him, he spoke. His voice, like his stature, like his gentleness, was unchanged.

"You can't stay here. You have to go."

He reached up to touch her face and she shuddered again, violently, feeling as though she'd been struck by lightning. His fingers could only brush her chin. The expression on his face was pained, exhausted, the way she'd remembered it before he'd gone to fight the Phoenix King. The last time she'd seen him alive, ten years ago.

"Aang."

Then he was gone.

She'd only blinked, and he'd disappeared. In his place was Amit's usual, inexpressive countenance, and he pulled his hand back to examine the tears which had run over it.

_No._ She blinked again, rapidly, willing the reality to give way to the mirage, or, rather, the mirage which she now saw to give way to the reality she'd never stopped yearning for all those years. Nothing happened. Vaguely she was aware of crunching and banging behind her – Jet, slowly working at freeing himself. Amit's large grey eyes reflected her distraught face back at her, a taunting echo.

"We have to go," the Avatar repeated, in His own voice – not very different, still a boy's, but not his. Not the voice of the boy she'd loved.

What strength possessed her; she was ignorant of its source, and could give it no name. Silently she knelt and Amit shimmied onto her back. Without a single backward glance, as if running from something far more terrifying and monstrous than the shell of a man pursuing them, she fled into the forest.

* * *

What Toph had originally indicated would be three children increased to five when, after discussion with a now-sober Sokka, they determined that it might be one chance in very few to foster the children out while danger of attack was not imminent. As they trekked across the uneven turf of the rainforest, Zuko checked that they were all yet present out of the peripheral vision in his good eye.

His charges included Raksha – the weaver – who still regarded him warily; the mute boy, Rann; Kamala and Lalita, a pair of wraith-like twins; and Enki, an energetic, easily distractible boy. Having been first fussed over and then cowed by a more emotional Toph than they had ever seen, they followed Zuko obediently, their meager possessions on their backs. He had bound his wounded leg tightly in order to make the trip more quickly, and he ignored its persistent throbbing as they moved steadily through the jungle. He used his broadswords in lieu of a machete to slash paths through the thick foliage where need be, but where it was possible they wriggled their way through, trying not to leave tracks.

From time to time Zuko paused to judge their position and the time by the sun's place in the sky. The children whispered among themselves, solemnly recounting the losing and changing of things. They had been shy to say goodbye to the others, seeming dazed, as if the whole experience were unreal. He urged them to be quiet and press onwards.

When night fell he constructed a makeshift campground, fed and sent them to bed without ceremony, hoping to get an early start in the morning. Watching them, he sat by the fire, bending it from time to time with a listless hand. _If this were a different situation…what would they be, to me? These Water children._

His slaves. That was the guise they traveled under, at any rate. Slavery of those of Water tribe descent had been legalized soon after the authority of the Phoenix King over his newly gained territories had solidified. It was for the benefit of these peoples, so the decree read, to expose them to civilization; to teach them how to live properly in a rapidly changing world instead of scrabbling about in the desolate ice with their animal hides and bones like savages. _The whole world will enjoy the prosperity and the progress of the former Fire Nation_.

Distracted by the sound of labored breathing, he noticed Enki shivering in his sleep and with difficulty got to his feet, hobbling to the side of the boy. Crouching as best he could, he extended one hand and laid it flat-palmed on the boy's small shoulder, and funneled fiery chi into his body. Enki shivered one last time and then sighed, relaxing.

The rainforest around them seemed to breathe in the cold, clear night. The lush foliage looked black in the dancing light of the fire, and the strange perfume of waxy night-blooming flowers mixed with loamy soil wafted on an occasional breeze. Painful memories bubbled up within him, and he inhaled and exhaled deeply, willing them to disperse into the night air.

Some distance away from the clearing where they had made camp a large bird broke out of the canopy and gave a loud, mournful cry. Immediately Zuko gestured at the fire to put it out, then spread his palm out on the ground, listening, watching, waiting. Though he was no earthbender, he had learned from Toph the basics of 'reading' the earth's vibrations. He struggled to quiet his breathing and slow his heartbeat. Though it was likely a mere forest creature – some night predator – he could afford to take no risks.

Now the chirping of the forest insects seemed louder. He imagined that he could hear his blood rumble through his eardrums. Then, a rustle, this time closer, headed toward the clearing. Zuko crouched in a defensive stance, channeling energy which made the fingertips of one hand glow, but daring to risk no fire yet. With the other hand he noiselessly unsheathed one sword from his back and brought it to bear.

When the source of the disturbances finally broke through the clearing, Zuko drew back his sword to strike. The hunched figure seemed to balk, having stumbled upon him without realizing it, and lurched backwards a bit.

He stopped the sword mid-motion and thrust his other hand, ablaze, forward instead, illuminating her face. "Katara."

Amit was asleep on her back, and where her arms and neck were exposed he could see clusters of shallow scratches. Deadened eyes, darkened to the color of sodden blue fabric, stared out of a filthy face as she slowly registered him. She blinked and straightened a little, seeming to 'see' him for the first time, and a little of the terrible deadness seemed to drain from her face as she leaned closer and whispered,

"Zuko. What are you doing out here?" Her eyes flickered behind him. "Why are the children here?"

Concerned at her appearance, he gestured for her to lay Amit down, and extended arms to help her. He did not stir as they placed him on the damp earth, and as they stood again he replied, in a voice equally as soft, "We're fostering them out."

"Then – " Her expression had become inscrutable once more, but the tone of her voice was apprehensive.

"No. Not yet. We've just eliminated some possibilities." Noting the lack of a canteen at Katara's side, Zuko reached around for his own and offered it to her. "How is he?" he asked, indicating Amit.

She refused the offer, her body language tense. "Unharmed. Zuko, we're being pursued." Even in the dark, she could see him blanch, and rushed to clarify: "Not Azula. It's Jet – there's something wrong with him – "

Dimly he recalled Sokka telling him about the terrorist. _Isn't he supposed to be dead?_ "How close is he?"

"We gained about a half a day on him, but he's moving faster than I can. We've been out here like this for days…I didn't want to lead him back to the others. Zuko, what are we going to do?" There was no trace of feminine desperation in her manner, and the question was asked with surprising calm. Zuko was used to this uncanny resolve of hers, but he also knew that it only arose at times when she closest to being immobilized by fear or pain or both. He remained silent while thinking, and when their eyes met he could see her straining to make herself understood.

"Zuko. He's." With one half-gloved hand gesturing. Her voice reverent, but cracking, hinting at the destruction which lay underneath the veneer of calm. His eyes widened as he stared momentarily at the small huddled figure, and then, questioning, looked back at her. Her expression wavered between stony and hysterical, wordlessly imploring him to believe her.

"Jet knows."

The Avatar. Zuko continued to gaze at the boy, the outlines of his body unclear in the deep night. Having lived so long in a world which seemed devoid of the divine; having suffered physical wounds and unfathomable despair for the sake of seeing the Avatar survive to be realized; keeping this day in sight, he found himself unable to speak. It seemed a thing beyond human comprehension, and yet, at the same time, he found his lower nature recoiling jealously in an arrogant attitude of disbelief and indifference, and he reminded himself of his own hidden purposes.

Zuko stepped closer to Katara, almost but not quite touching, the illusion of a comforting gesture. He waited for her to meet his eyes, and looked at her in a way that he hoped was steadfast. When he judged that enough time had passed, he said:

"Let me take him." Then, picking up his pace, not giving her time to protest, he continued, "You can take the children to Chong and the others, and I'll lead Jet away. I know this place better than either of you, and if I have Amit with me, he'll follow us and not you."

"But your leg – "

"It's fine; it's better." Now he did lay hands on her, having to force himself and grimacing inwardly as he did so. He could feel her body tensing, reacting to the sudden gesture of intimacy, and he struggled against the wave of self-loathing his deception caused. "This is the only way I can think of. We have to leave now."

She returned his gesture with growing strength, grasping both of his forearms. Their faces were close, and he could feel her tremble, but her gaze remained steady, her eyes unclouded. "Promise me you'll protect him with your life." They were close enough for him to feel the words as she pronounced them, both in the breath against his face and the vibrations her throat produced. Almost hypnotized, he pronounced the words without conscious thought.

"I promise."

* * *

The sweet trilling of the pipa almost passed for a birdsong. Gathering the children close around her, Katara peered into the clearing and her heart was glad when she beheld Chong, dressed in robes the color of the foliage, sitting cross-legged next to a stream and playing away. As she shepherded the children toward him he grinned and tucked it away with a final trill, then stood. The children were wary, and hung behind Katara, peering at him.

"Hey, Water child." He embraced her, his sun-warmed hair smelling of strange flowers. In his arms, her first feeling of genuine safety in weeks and perhaps more, she finally allowed herself to cry. Her body shook with sobs, and Chong's grip on her did not change. Large hands moved over her back, comforting her. She sensed the children's concerned gazes on her and forced herself to pull away, swiping at her eyes.

Brief introductions followed as Chong led them to the camp. He joked with the kids, rubbing their fuzzy skulls, taking time to talk with each of them. When a lull in conversation occurred, he started singing, evidently unconcerned should someone overhear them. His reedy, throaty voice filtered through the trees. Their bodies were dappled in sunshine. It felt unreal, as if when they reached the camp it should only be natural to find the others there. Appa and Momo quarreling over fruit. Aang trying to coax Toph to swim with him in the pool by the waterfall. Sokka cooking over the fire, grumbling about the bad time they were making.

What she actually saw when she reached the clearing stole her breath. They had been expected, and were greeted with embraces and joyful noise, a whirl of color and voices. The children were scooped up, kissed, thrown into the air by various people. Other Water tribe children their age, some of whom Katara recognized, rushed over to greet their friends, uninhibited by shyness. Stunned, she realized as Chong's wife, Lily, hugged her that there were at least fifty of them, all dressed in garish perfomers' clothing. Most of them were Water tribe, and she recognized that many were not only refugees, but parents and relatives of the children which they had given over for the sake of their safety.

"Katara!" The sound of her name called in a familiar male voice pierced through her, briefly, before she had to gather herself again. She turned to face the source, forcing a smile she did not completely feel.

"Haru. I didn't know you'd be here."

The swarthy young earthbender grinned, stroking his bearded chin as he pretended to look her over. "And I didn't think you'd be the escort. I was prepared to see a much uglier face."

She pretended to look flattered as he pulled her into a hug, but could not find the heart to respond in kind.

Later that night, having slipped away from the others during dinner and returning fresh from a bath in the river, Katara spotted Haru's proud figure from a distance at the central campfire and stepped delicately through the campsite to make her way over. People she had met in times that seemed as distant as previous lives called out to her, thanking her, praising her, wishing her well.

At the campfire where Haru sat, Raksha was curled onto Meng's lap, sleeping. Chong watched affectionately over his wife's shoulder as she recorded their day's progress on a scroll for journaling. Across the campsite, Moku's belly laugh rang out as he amused primarily himself with the stories he was telling. One by one the fires began to die down as the travelers lay down to sleep for the night, and Lily rose and left to tend to the children who were not with adults.

"Will you stay with us now, Katara?" Haru's expression was earnest as he asked her. They were sitting close, but she felt distant from the gentle young man and his questing expression. She shook her head, glancing to make sure that no one but Chong was listening.

"I was being pursued. It's too risky for me to stay longer than tomorrow morning."

"By whom? Will they come here?"

"No, I don't think so." She struggled to find the words to express the hopelessness which now threatened to swallow her since the spectre of Aang had disappeared before her eyes, and the helplessness she felt being separated from Amit. "The pursuer was after the Avatar."

Haru's intake of breath was audible, but Chong's laughter drowned it out. Katara stared at him in shock as he threw his head back and laughed exultantly, palms lifted.

"The spirits are good. The Avatar has survived!"

"Sssshhh," Haru cautioned, seeing Katara's peculiar, strangled expression. "Katara, you know which of the children it is already?"

"Yes. I found out…it was an accident."

Chong had quieted, but his face still held an expression of pure, inexplicable joy as he clasped his hands together in a reverent gesture. "Our world is delivered! This is reason for rejoicing."

"How can we celebrate? He's out there…his life is in danger. And he's a mere child. How can we possibly expect to protect him until he's fully realized? What can we ask of him when we are the reason Aa – he died?" She fought to control herself. "This forsaken world is the reason the Avatar has been born and died a thousand times. It's not _fair_."

"You're speaking of the purpose for which the Avatar exists, and is reborn," Chong explained, calmly. "We don't ask anything of him; his own nature demands it from Himself." Extending a hand over the dying fire, he clasped her trembling fingers in his own. "Be at peace, Water child. There are ten thousand things to which you may attend; you cannot have control over them all."

"I'm trying," she choked out, not caring enough to check the rising flood of tears.

Chong's gaze was unwavering, and the flesh of his hand warm. "You must have faith."

* * *

They walked through the night and on into the next day. Amit had no reaction to the change in traveling partners, or the fact that he now had to walk instead of ride. He kept a steady pace at a foot behind Zuko, slowing when the firebender slowed, saying nothing. Gradually the young man's initial feeling of terrible awe had faded, replaced with an iron resolve to see things played out as he intended. He willed the memory of the faith Katara had placed in him, too, to fade.

_There is no place in this world for the divine. _

Not for trust, not for allies. Though he had been with the others for years, he felt their influence, and the memories of that time, rapidly becoming assimilated into the faceless, formless past, where all he was certain of since the time of his mother's disappearance, and from the time he had been exiled by his father and dislocated from all he knew, was pain, a ceaseless torrent, congealing into bitterness, reminding him of the actuality of life: suffering.

When they reached a man-made road, Zuko stopped and knelt, gesturing for Amit to approach, and carefully dressed him in the smaller of the red cloaks Katara had given to them, and scrubbed as much of the dirt as he could from the boy's face with its hem. Straightening, he regarded his work with satisfaction, and said without preamble,

"From now on, regard me as your father."

Amit gazed at him without reaction. "Do we look enough alike?"

"You're fair enough to pass." Zuko turned, looking down the road, listening for signs of human life, but could discern nothing. "We're going into town. This way, we may lose our pursuer."

The boy nodded, accepting Zuko's explanation with no regard for its meaning.

"Don't speak to anyone, or display interest in anything. Follow me and be obedient, like a good son."

Donning the red robe, as tattered and faded as it was, made Zuko's skin crawl. He pulled up the hood and clawed a mass of snarled hair in front of his scar, then cast about for a puddle to check his reflection. When he could find nothing, he turned to Amit, and before he could ask the boy had gauged him keenly and replied,

"It's fine." He paused, and then added, "Father."

Though there was no evident suspicion or ill-will in his voice, Zuko still flinched inwardly, as if struck.

The town was a modest one, a former colony on the outskirts of old Fire Nation territory that had since lost its strategic value and become nothing more than a checkpoint on traveler's maps. As they walked into town Zuko forced himself upright, placing weight equally on both legs and ignoring the protests of his healing wound.

It was midday, and no one paid them a second glance. They stopped at a small tea-and-soup shop, and he ordered the cheapest set for Amit and a cup of ginseng for himself. It would do nothing to quiet the clamor of his stomach for food, but it would help with the dizziness which had come on with the charade he was forced to keep.

He was studying a map of the region when the server brought them two trays heaped high with food. Though Amit would surely have been starving after his flight from Jet, he did not touch the food, instead lifting his eyes to Zuko to see what he should do. Before the former prince could protest, the server shook her head and gestured demurely to a elderly man sitting at the bar.

"From that gentlemen. A gift."

Dazed, Zuko glanced down at the plate. Food the likes of which he had not seen, much less tasted, in years, released a dizzying aroma and made him feel faint. Steam poured from the rice, formed like passing clouds, and the pieces of fish and vegetables were delicately arranged with a variety of pickles and dipping sauces. A cup of tea and one of rice wine completed the set. Amit's was identical, save for the absence of the rice wine cup. He was glad for the chatter of the travelers around them, which effectively concealed the moans of his stomach.

He glanced up and met first the boy's eyes, steady, unwavering, and waiting on his signal; then the old man, who paused before twisting a bit in his chair, lifting his glass, and giving a grave, toothless smile.

"Don't touch it," Zuko finally said when he had recovered his wits. "until I say you may do so."

Seemingly unconcerned, Amit busied himself with tracing the grainwork of the table with one small finger.

Slowly, taking care that his hand did not tremble visibly, he took the chopsticks in hand and sampled each food from both plates, finishing with a swallow of liquid from each cup. His experience as a taste-tester in prison served him well, and he was able to restrain himself until the end, when he set the chopsticks down and waited. Fifteen minutes passed, twenty. He found himself wishing that Amit was given to childlike chatter and endless questioning as he tried in vain to focus on the map. Finally, when the steam had ceased to rise from the rice, Zuko nodded at his charge.

"Go ahead."

They made quick work of the trays. Distracted, and trying not to wolf the food, Zuko perceived the hand that hovered over his shoulder only seconds before it landed. Tensing, he looked up.

It was the old man. Though he was wizened, his grip was strong; the flesh on his face was deeply lined, with an almost ropy appearance. His long white hair was braided into a complicated topknot which Zuko vaguely recognized as an old style favored by members of the peasant class of the former Fire Nation. He kneaded Zuko's shoulder briefly before gesturing at the seat next to him. Unable to conjure an excuse for refusal, Zuko slid over so he could sit down.

"You're a wise man," he said, and the voice was akin to the hideous cracking of an ancient tree struck by lightning, "but you look as if you have been starving. I meant you no ill will with the food I sent."

"You have our gratitude," Zuko replied, curtly, and Amit bowed his head, whether in shyness or thanks he could not tell.

He shrugged, his eyes narrowing. The sclera were so jaundiced, it was difficult to differentiate them from his pale yellow irises. "It's rare to see two suffering travelers after the coronation of our benevolent Phoenix King. I was only showing you the same grace and goodwill that he has shown to the entire world."

Zuko made no comment, staring at his hands on the rough-grained table and willing them not to curl into fists.

"There's no reason for me to assume this, but…" the old man reached into the sleeve of his cloak and Zuko tensed, prepared to draw one of his swords, but what he drew forth was a clenched palm, before he raised it to eye level and flipped the object over his long, bony fingers, "you wouldn't happen to be interested in a game of pai sho before you depart, would you?"

Silent, Zuko gazed at the well-worn, wooden object suspended between two of the withered knuckles. The white fetish carved into it was blurred, but distinguishable.

Lotus tile.


	7. Prayer

_This story is now rated M; this chapter contains graphic incest. Read at your personal discretion._

_

* * *

_"_Your future is full of struggle and anguish, most of it self-inflicted."_

– _Aunt Wu's prediction to Sokka_

Chong rose early, hoping to talk with Katara before she left, but the place where she had been sleeping was empty, the linens Lily had given her carefully folded and cold to the touch. There was no note, no footprints, no sign she had been there at all.

The musician closed his eyes and pulled the morning air deep into his lungs. Slowly, taking care to tread lightly and not wake the others, he tiptoed through the camp and walked into the forest. It hummed with life, coming into being beneath the rising sun.

He let his fingers run over the pipa slung by his side as he walked, silently composing a hymn of praise. Instead of a vision of the newly reincarnated Avatar, however, Katara's tearful yet resolute countenance rose up before him. The song began to form, take shape. Praise for the devotion of this young one. Exultation of her weary but ardent dedication. Though her own faith was unsure, her actions had always been blameless and right.

_My feet are weary with the dust,_

_Having no right to sing, I purify myself._

_My soul shall sing of her glory,_

_The young pear tree which bursts into bloom._

_(Hail! Avatar's protector! Mistress of our hope!)_

_My wisdom is more fleeting than life itself._

_I hasten to sing ye, tell you her tale._

_I meditate on her, lady of the water,_

_Daughter of suffering, blessed hands which heal._

_(Hail! Steadfast companion! Compassion flows_

_from thy fingertips.)_

_

* * *

_Even though she had been 'home' for hours, several of the children refused to leave her side. She bore their attentions and demands with gentle patience, letting them attempt to help her purify the water in the underground pools, healing their small wounds from earthbending and tussling with one another, listening to their stories, answering their insistent questions. Sokka watched her at a little distance, moodily, sharpening the same weapon over and again.

Her absence had only served to warp him further, and he felt at a loss for how to compete with the knowledge that she had been given that which she had obsessively pursued all these years. Though she appeared to have recovered from her grief over Aang's death, he knew her more intimately; he well understood that the reincarnated Avatar was the sole thought which motivated her actions. Now her gaze was more vacant than usual. Her cheerful voice was forced, distracted, and the way her body moved was as if she was being watched by one for whom she would gladly give her life, or in awareness of him. He could not have imagined such a thing previously – though he had feared it – and now the realization was like swallowing cold blubber. Fear. She would leave him, pursue the Avatar to the ends of the earth, perish in his stead.

Jealousy ran hot and thick through him as he brooded, and he thrice-cursed Zuko for emptying out his liquor.

"It's good to be together again." Toph had come up behind him without his noticing it, and she stretched out on the ground next to him, sightless eyes turned toward the ceiling.

"Mm." His gaze never left Katara.

"Sokka."

"What?" He snapped the word, finally tearing his eyes away, and watched with a dispassionate curiosity as Toph's customary stoicism gave way to uneasiness. Though her expression did not change, and though her arms were folded underneath her neck in a carefree way, she stank of secondhand fear. He stared at her, challenging her to say something as he tensed the muscles in his legs and feet, knowing that she would register such a signal.

The muscles in her neck tensed as she swallowed, then rolled over, facing away from him. "Nothing."

Returning his attention to Katara, he thumped the heel of one hand into the base of his throat, inhaling deeply and then releasing the air in a low, tantalizing 'uhhhhhhmmm'. Immediately the children perked up, laughing with delight. Several detached themselves from Katara's side and scampered over, watching him with awe and then tugging at his arms when he finished.

"_Rekut!_ With Katara!" Nuka demanded.

Quopuk added, hastily, "Please." The other children picked up the request and repeated it, pushing Katara forward toward him.

With a gentle smile, Katara acquiesced, allowing herself to be herded over toward her brother. Eyes several shades lighter than his own locked onto his, and though they betrayed no emotion Sokka relished how her skin flushed when he took her hands in his.

The form of traditional Water tribe singing they occasionally performed for the children was _rekut_, throat-sharing. They stood close, their bodies nearly touching. Sokka removed his half-gloves and rubbed his hands together rapidly to warm them, then cupped them one over the other. Katara let her jaw hang slack, closing her eyes. He brought the lowermost hand to her lips and then placed his mouth against the other hand. Taking a deep breath, he propelled the guttural singing through his funneled hands, feeling it fill her oral cavity and resonate deeply. Her mouth vibrated against his curled palm.

_Rekut_ was typically performed between husband and wife, or betrothed couples, to cement their bond, but the children, having grown up with no permanent home and no shared culture, cared not one way or another. They loved it when Sokka throat-sang for them, and were even more excited when he had offered to demonstrate for them the dying practice. Though Katara had no formal training, as the 'receiver' of the song, she had picked up her role with ease and performed it with alacrity.

"We must preserve the traditions of our people for the next generation," she'd explained to Toph when the earthbender had asked her if she felt comfortable in the role.

"You know that you don't have to do it," Toph had replied, seemingly ignoring her answer.

"I don't do anything I don't want to," she'd retorted, feeling defensive.

The children watched them as if hypnotized as Katara modulated the stream of sound, feeling it buzz against her soft palate and resound between her ears. It was said that airbenders had originally brought throat-singing to the Water tribes as a form of meditation. A powerful airbender, one ancient text in the Northern temple had explained, could use _rekut _to re-align another's chi and purify their soul.

Opening her eyes, she saw the naked hunger in her brothers', and did not feel purified in the least.

* * *

The old man led them through the heart of town, hobbling along with the aid of well-worn cane. Still, when they reached their destination, he vanished with surprising agility between two cart vendors into a thin, dirty alleyway where the sun did not reach. Herding Amit before him, Zuko drew in a deep breath, drew up his injured leg and followed suit.

He had stopped at a wooden door toward the dead end of the alley and was giving it a series of complicated knocks with the tip of his cane. Zuko reached up and touched the side of his face, reassuring himself that his scar was still concealed. The door swung open and the elder gave a ghastly smile, beckoning to them.

"Come, come."

They followed him down a twisting passage of stone, the steps covered in slimy mold which made the footing treacherous. Halfway down, Zuko realized that he had been leaning – on his wounded side – on Amit, who had drifted close to his 'father's' side without a word. He noticed, too, how the Avatar regarded with placid interest the strange markings which were scratched into the stone walls on either side of the narrow passage, illuminated badly by the flickering light of the crude torch the old man carried to lead the way.

"They're messages in the ancient Water tribe language," the elder's voice came drifting from below them in the dimness. "This place has harbored its share of refugees."

Amit paused to brush his fingertips over one of the rough scratches. "_Mother waits_," he read in a low voice. Zuko tightened his grip on the boy's shoulder, urging him forward.

At the foot of the stairs, a small room with stone stools arranged in a circle awaited them. Zuko hissed through his teeth as his foot struck the ground, instinctively gripping where his thigh joined to his hip in an attempt to dull the pain.

"You're wounded, young prince. Here – drink this." He was handed a porcelain cup with an amber liquid, and with vision blurring slightly he took it, drinking thirstily.

The frothy brew burned his throat but settled pleasantly and cold in his stomach. Murky clouds of ginger floated through it and settled in a film over his tongue. As he drank, his head slowly began to clear, his leg causing him less pain, he realized with a shudder what the old man had called him, and setting down the cup stepped back warily, reaching for his swords.

"Easy," the old man cautioned. "I mean you no ill will."

"Who are you?" Zuko demanded, casting about the room as if he feared the shadows might crystallize into forms and bear down on him.

"A friend," he said in the same soothing tone of voice. Still holding one hand in front of him – an ineffectual shield – he lowered himself onto one of the stone stools. "A member of the former Fire nation, just like yourself."

"How do you know who I am?"

"I've been ordered to keep a lookout for you, should you ever pass through here." The old man sighed with apparent relief as he relaxed, and passed one aged hand over his face. "There are things about ourselves we cannot change, distinguishers or disfigurements we'll never be rid of if we lived to be three hundred. Your uncle – " Zuko started visibly at the words " – was very specific about you. Even without seeing your scar, I would know you by his description, even if I searched for you through many lifetimes."

The memory of his uncle, kept at bay despite relentless siege through a tremendous effort of will on his part, rose within him, carrying with it a spreading surge of emotion. He shook his head to clear it, angry with himself, and wavered unsteadily on his feet for a moment, from pain physical or emotional he could not tell. Amit watched him with uncharacteristic concern, one small hand resting in the crook of Zuko's elbow.

He could not bear to pronounce the word _uncle_. "Iroh is alive?"

"When I last spoke with him, yes." The man's yellow eyes were gentle.

"When…?" Zuko cringed to hear the pleading tone in his own voice.

"A year, two years now, perhaps. He said you would recognize the sign of the lotus, and that you would follow me, if unwillingly. He said I should be careful not to turn my back, but that my life would not be forfeited…probably." The old man cackled. "I am pleased that he was right! Ancient I may be, but I haven't made my peace with the final rest just yet."

Listlessly, the former prince offered no resistance as Amit guided him to the stone stool opposite the old man's and helped him sit, his cool small hand curled over Zuko's, slick with sweat and exhaustion.

"I still don't understand," Zuko ventured at length. "Who are you? Why are you here…?"

"You're right to question me. Certainly one of my purposes, as I've said, was to communicate to you your uncle's message. Another is to help refugees pass through this place to somewhere safer. But the final purpose is most important. You must know about your sister."

Shifting uneasily, Zuko averted his gaze. "I know all of her that I wish to."

"You cannot imagine the likes of which I must tell you." When he was satisfied that he had the firebender's attention, the old man continued:

"The Firelady has never ceased to scheme, these long years. She intends to wed the Phoenix King before he can wed another and produce and heir, and in this way, cement her place as supreme ruler. Though the reign we have seen from Ozai has been cruel, to have Azula as the seat of so much power and influence would be a disaster of unimaginable proportions. You know this better than anyone."

"My father…could not possibly entertain such an idea…" he sputtered, feeling the bile rise in his throat.

The old man looked away, his features knit up in an inscrutable grimace. "Your father's mind is eaten up with his power. When she makes her proposal in earnest, we suspect that he will not refuse her."

Unable to control himself any longer, Zuko threw himself off the stool onto all fours and vomited helplessly in the darkness outside of the poorly formed circle. Vaguely he was aware of Amit pulling back his hood and hair, and touching the exposed back of his neck with steady fingers, evidently undisturbed by the foul display.

He wiped vomit from his mouth with the hem of his robe. His body trembled all over. Amit kept his cool hand on the back of his neck with the gentlest of pressure, his other hand venturing over his back. Zuko was on the verge of shrugging the child off when a wash of relief traveled through his body, his stomach settling, the fire in his leg fading to dull ashes. Suddenly he felt able to breathe, and gathering himself he stood, gazing with surprise at Amit.

"The child is a formidable healer," the old man said solemnly, examining Amit with interest.

Finally gathering himself, Zuko drew himself up to his full height, feeling rage boil within him. "Old man. Who are you?"

"A friend, though I fear the things I have told you have caused you pain." The old man shook his head, and leaning forward, extended one ancient hand. "It's my pleasure to have met you in this lifetime, young prince. I am the most senior member of the Order in which your esteemed uncle is a Grandmaster. My name," and here he paused, and gave a strange and mournful smile in Amit's direction, his rheumy eyes closed, "is Kuzon."

* * *

Peace settled over the caverns as night fell. The water had been purified and heated, causing a drowsiness to come over the children. They curled up to sleep together on newly cleaned linens in newly mended clothing, their bodies, too, clean and warm. The main cavern had been swept and washed out, and their supplies were organized. Though it looked as if they were readying to leave – and indeed, they were – none of the children seemed nervous. They slept tranquilly, as they had not for some time, secure in Katara's presence.

In an adjacent cavern, Sokka re-traced a series of tracks in the dust with his finger, waiting for her to join him. She had gone out to call Appa, but he could feel the time of her returning as sure as one perceives the slow turning of the seasons.

When she did come, the dark joy burbled up from within him like poison sucked out of a wound. She sat down next to him on the furs he had spread out without acknowledging him directly, and removed her outer cape.

"Appa won't come," she said, neutrally, and though her hair was too short to brush she touched it anyway as if to let it down. "There was something Jet said…"

Mindlessly, he heard nothing of what she spoke, but waited for her to lie down, and when she did he threw himself over her, his breathing coming hard and fast.

He traced the new scratches on her limbs and at the base of her neck. Shallow cuts like these she could have healed easily, but neglect – purposeful, he knew – was turning them slowly into hair-thin, white scars. The way he pressed his lips on them, hard and knowing, could not have been called kissing. Her face was turned away, her eyes open and vacant, her mouth trembling as she struggled not to display evidence of her humiliation.

Gently he reached down and picked up one of her hands around the wrist. She submitted limply, allowing him to guide the hand over his neck. His fingers wrapped around hers as he positioned her small fingers in a circle over his Adam's apple, where the sacred tattoos clawed upward like flames threatening to devour his face, whispering death even while the holy symbols promised to protect his life. Willing her to choke him, stop him, thinking _I don't want to live anyway._

The caress was brief and tentative, but the sensitive skin of his throat registered it anyway. Though she held his life in her hands; though she could bloodbend all the fluid in his body to ice; she responded to his vulnerability by giving herself over to his desire.

The first time he had approached her, on his return from prison, and she had not rejected him outright, he had gone berserk. It had been as if someone had broken the safety on a valve, and the outpouring of lust, rage and grief had been incomprehensible. Slavering like an animal, he had ravaged her, oblivious to her cries. He'd blacked out afterward, and had been surprised to wake up alive. He would have committed ritual suicide from the shame but for one thing – when he woke, she was at his side.

"Kill me," he'd pleaded, weeping, bringing her hand to his throat once more.

Whether from cruelty or tenderness, she'd refused.

Now, as the blood rushed to his head and pulsed in his temples, he had a vision in his mind's eye of the way Suki's had rushed out in great gouts to the choked, staccato noises of her death-screams. Feeling Katara's pulse under his fingers where he held her wrist down, he imagined their blood mingling. It would be nothing like hers, the way it overwhelmed him with grief. _It would be of my own flesh, my own bone._ It would merge as it overflowed, becoming one and the same. She writhed beneath him. Even her breasts, unspoiled by children, quivered from him. He pressed his face to them, blacking out sight. Her gasps urged him forward as he buried himself in her, tearing her asunder.

The beauty of this perfect vision which rose behind his eyes, swimming in siblings' blood and obscurest pleasure, impenetrable to any outsider, pushed him over the edge. As he claimed her, he willed her to cry out, to share in his vision, but she remained mute. The tears which had escaped her dark lashes ran over her cheeks and pooled in the hollow of her neck. He drank them as if from one of the dark underground pools, feeling his own eyes water in sympathy.

Exhausted, he fell at her side and gathered her close in his arms beneath the friction-warmed furs. She rested on his chest, her breathing slow. Their skin stuck together with a glue of sweat where limbs and torsos were still joined. He ran his mouth over one bronze shoulder, nibbling, panting, and she shifted slightly, neither rejecting nor encouraging him.

Briefly self-loathing washed over him, but he exorcised it with a deep breath from her short hair. Even her body smelled and glowed with exertion as his did. Falling asleep, toward oblivion, drowsily he prayed that when morning came they would not awaken.

In his arms, thinking her own silent thoughts, Katara prayed the same.

* * *

Late, late. The messenger hawk had come in the small hours of the morning, but Azula had not slept. Ty Lee was curled on her side in the bed that they shared, sleeping uneasily, her pretty features knitted in a scowl. Azula observed her coldly as she removed the scroll from the case on the hawk's back, noting how her fingers clenched and unclenched helplessly, like a child's. _Dreaming_, the Firelady realized, and sneered a little, wondering about the particulars.

She unrolled the parchment and scanned it by the light of the candle at their bedside. The cruel, disaffected sneer slowly became a full-fledged grin. Carefully she re-rolled it and stood it on its end in one palm. Opening her fingers delicately, she engulfed it in flame.

"Ty Lee, my dear," she said, unconcerned should she waken or not, and her voice was thick with triumph. "We're going home."

* * *

_A/N:_

_Chong's song is loosely based on a translation of the "Hanuman Chalisa", a traditional song of praise._

_Rekut was an actual practice among the Ainu, but no longer has any living practitioners. _


	8. Guile

_Long night: unable to sleep_

_The moonlight, how breakingly bright._

_Calling, someone seems calling._

_Into the empty air, I answer "Yes?" _

– _Anon. (Zi Ye series)_

"_Katara…"_

Sokka's whisper was faint, but it crawled across her skin nonetheless. With a violent recoil Toph sprang to her feet and hastily groped for one of the thick rugs woven from Appa's fur, bundled and ready for transport. Throwing it open across the ground, she flung herself on it and tucked her feet and legs underneath her, effectively blinding herself. She shuddered as she well imagined the horrors Katara was enduring, the small hairs on her arms raised in a mixture of fear and disgust.

Seeing through vibration meant that Toph actually _experienced_ what she saw. Not only could she 'see' Sokka's savage advances on his sister, and the way that Katara submitted limply, but she could _feel_ the waterbender's pulse quickening, her suppressed sobs, her trembling, despite their distance from her in their place deeper within the caverns. Every motion of Katara's body, even her breath, was transmitted through the earth and ran up and through Toph's own body like a knife. Having spent years with Katara, she was particularly sensitive to her emotions in both a tactile and intuitive sense. She thought of the female waterbender as family, and she'd felt similarly about Sokka, until…

Among Toph's first impressions of Zuko was how he reacted when Sokka first assaulted his sister when he returned from prison. They had been camping out in the jungle, and even Zuko, who could not earthbend, could hear the noises from inside the siblings' tent and guess what was happening. At the time, Toph had been most shocked that her own fear had immobilized her; that she hadn't had the wherewithal to tear the tent down with a mighty ripple of earth and give Sokka the beating he well deserved. Instead when she regained control of herself she was being held up by Zuko, the firebender's hand over her mouth to stop her from screaming. She was about to bite him when he gestured with his free hand at the sleeping children, and her resolve wavered.

Slowly he had removed his hand, and said, soft, close to her ear: "There's nothing we can do."

She could have loathed him for what seemed to be his apathy, but the stricken, sickening thud of his heart beating through the soles of his feet and up through her heels explained silently what could not be put into words.

When he handed her a pair of small cotton earplugs, silently offering to stay awake and alert himself, she accepted them automatically. It was not until later that she realized the implicit trust she was placing in him when she did so.

Now she missed him, and knew well that it could be mere days or long years before she saw him again. Most of the time she was untouched by sentimental, foolish longing, but at times like these she longed for the voices of her parents. She had not seen them in over a decade, and briefly she wondered if they were still alive. Though she knew she had grown in the years spent itinerant, she had no visual concept of the image of herself changing; she _felt_ her body becoming larger, stronger. She knew concretely that she had become a woman, but her heart had not changed. The same fear and loneliness gripped her when her mind found the time and freedom to wander.

Somehow, Zuko seemed to understand that, even though he had not known her in the years before Aang's death.

She heard one of the children moaning softly in the grip of a nightmare, and she cursed her inability to soothe him, her grip on the thick wooly blanket tightening. Her love for their charges was fierce and wild. She would bring down mountains upon the megalomaniac who pursued them for their sake. Of course their main objective was to protect the reincarnated Avatar, but she could not pretend that was her sole motivation, or even her first priority. Instead the feeling of each of their separate, distinct visages rose within the muscle memory of her fingertips, and she clenched them, trying to calm herself. Desperate thoughts and emotions flooded through her, and she found herself trembling, and then, even more astonishing, praying:

_Please, spirits, protect them._

_

* * *

_Though his hands shook when he lifted them, Zuko forced himself to stay awake and talk with Kuzon into the wee hours of the morning. The old man provided him with as much information as he had managed to gather, including tattered maps and schematics. He stared at the latter blankly, thinking it would be good if Sokka could look them over.

"This, here, is the most recent map." Kuzon rubbed his aged chin in thought. Though they had been awake for hours, he showed no signs of exhaustion. The flickering firelight played over Amit, who was curled into an odd jumble of blankets and robes, sleeping peacefully, and reflected off of the tea in Zuko's cup. He felt as though he could dissolve within it, and longed for the jasmine his uncle had once brewed so well.

"Here," the old man indicated, tapping one finger on the worn parchment. "And here, here. These are the last holdouts against the army. The desert and swamp have proven difficult for them to traverse."

"And Omashu?"

"Why, it's said the soldiers are afraid to approach it; that the spirit of King Bumi protects the place. When he died defending the city, he took many battalions with him. No, they'll wait to attack there again until they're assured of their victory. Ozai can't lead them to it," and here the old man sighed, folding his arms and dropping his head in a meditative posture. "He's holed up in his stronghold in Ba Sing Se, driving himself insane."

An idea that had been roiling in the back of Zuko's mind slowly kindled into flame. He formed his words carefully, afraid that it might desert him and sputter out before he could bring it to fruition; and concerned, too, that the old man might guess his true motives.

"If my f – Ozai is in the Eastern Capital, and my sister is pursuing the Avatar, who remains in the old Fire Nation?"

Kuzon gave a little nod of admiration. "As expected from one with a prince's upbringing. But your uncle's thought of that already, and as it turns out your sister has, as well. She left the Western Capital in very capable hands. Does the name Thuza mean anything to you?"

Though he fought to control his reaction, Zuko was too tired to conceal it properly. Instead he ground his teeth, looking away. "I know of him," he replied. "But has she really put him in control…?"

"Have you ever known your sister to surrender control of anything?"

Silence – not that a response was necessary. Kuzon narrowed his eyes at Zuko anyway, his face made weirdly monstrous by the flickering light of the torch.

"Even if she had, what of it? What could you accomplish on your own? Particularly with the burden of the charge that's been entrusted to you. " Both of their gazes shifted to the sleeping boy; Zuko's only peripherally, while Kuzon looked full-on and with unabashed fondness. "You can't expect an old fool like me to simply take over for you."

"I didn't mean to imply – "

"That I knew him in a past reincarnation means nothing. He's a wholly different being now. Then, I was his friend, and you hunted him down. Now, his life is in your hands. What will you do with it, I wonder?"

Zuko threw him a sharp glance, and Kuzon leaned back into a stretch, his limbs crackling.

"Listen to me go on. It's late, and we'd both do best to sleep. You'll have to move quickly tomorrow if there's a dead man tracking you." Kneeling with difficulty, the old man scattered a handful of gravel on the fire until it cooled to glowing cinders. "Good night, Prince Zuko."

It was impossible to tell if Kuzon's rasping voice held traces of sarcasm, or worse, suspicion. Zuko cast it willfully from his mind as he lowered himself to the ground beside Amit. "Good night."

* * *

They traveled for several days into the jungle. The children took turns blowing the bison whistle, passing it on when their small lungs tired, but there was no sign of Appa. As they neared the peninsula, in the afternoon of the third day, a wave of foul odor washed over them, causing the children to gag. Katara and Sokka exchanged a wordless glance, and without discussion the waterbender led Toph and the children off in another direction while Sokka went to investigate the source of the smell.

Moving through the creeper-laden jungle, Sokka paused to tear off a strip from his tunic and knotted it tightly around his nose and mouth, fighting the urge to vomit. His eyes welled, whether from the rancid smell or the pathetic situation he could not tell. He could hear the sound of the ocean and judged the source to be on the edge of the beach. Steeling himself, he drew closer and parted the last tangle of vines to investigate.

The carcass seemed bigger than the living creature had. The bones had been picked over by scavengers, and wet by rain, but the corpse was so massive that a good deal of rotting meat, full of wriggling, hairless maggot-rats, still remained. Here and there it was clear that someone had purposefully stripped the meat from the bone and then taken portions of both for their own use. The horns, skin and fur were completely gone.

He knelt to examine a soft bit of earth, and confirmed what he already knew. This was not an accident, nor had Appa finally encountered a more savage beast. Though, thinking of Azula, Sokka's mouth twisted as he realized that perhaps he ought not to mince words. The footprint was too broad and heavy to belong to the Firelady, but that meant little; she still could have been involved. In any case, it was unwise to remain in the vicinity.

Katara and Toph had herded to the children around to the east, putting them out of the general range of the violent odor of decay. Both girls read Sokka immediately and turned abruptly to the children, trying to distract them before the young man could speak.

"Sulati, you ought to show me some of your earthbending," Katara said, taking the small girl by the hand. "In fact, why don't you all help Toph? Then some of you could ride on the slate, like before."

"I'm tired," Yural complained. "I thought we were going to ride on Appa."

"How could Appa carry all of us?" Katara reasoned with her. "Since Zuko isn't with us, we can't fly the balloon anymore."

"I thought we were looking for him anyway," the girl protested, twisting a lock of her short hair around one finger.

Sokka laid a gentle hand on his sister's shoulder. "We can't lie to them forever."

She forced her expression to remain neutral, though inwardly her stomach was twisted into thick knots; she could smell the death on him, and she recoiled from his touch. "Are you _sure_?"

"Positive. Didn't you say that Jet was wearing…"

"Stop." Her skin crawled. "What are we going to do?"

"Katara?" Sulati tugged at her robes. "Do you still want us to help?"

"Not right now, sweetheart. Give us a minute, okay?"

Toph directed the rest of the children to huddle together with the supplies, stomping a warning when Nuka and Firat looked like they might come over anyway and managing to 'glare', which somehow was more frightening because she did not focus exactly on them as she did so.

"What should we tell them?"

'The truth."

"They've experienced enough death."

"That's exactly why they'll be able to understand."

Katara shook her head. "No."

"You can't protect them from reality."

"What are you talking about?"

"We have to tell them about Amit, too."

Helplessly, and though it rankled her to do so, Katara looked to her brother for guidance. For once he did not return her querying gaze, and it both pleased and frightened her. Instead he got to his feet and went over to the children, indicating that they should gather around him. Toph followed him, though she remained standing while he squatted. Unable to will herself to move, Katara watched, feeling as a thick sheet of ice separated her from the others.

Distantly, she heard Sokka explaining their situation to the children. There was a quality, when children wept, of completely abandoning oneself to grief. The incomprehensible gulf between one's separation from others, and from the world (though they could not possibly understand and express it as such) made them inconsolable. Several of the girls stumbled over to Katara and clung to her robes, crying loudly. Tanith sat hard on the ground, stubbornly resisting the urge to cry, and Shong seemed more angry than sad, venturing into the trees beyond the clearing and kicking at whatever flora happened to be in his way.

Katara rubbed the girls' heads, unable to muster even a word to console them. They hadn't cried this hard even when their pursuers had murdered Jaiv, one of the children traveling with them previously, almost a year ago. Azula had caught the boy in a burst of lightning and seemed intent on electrocuting the life out of him when Mai shot out one of her knives and ran him through the throat. It had been a quicker and cleaner death than any of them had witnessed before, with various other escorts – the massacre in the crystal caverns of old Ba Sing Se, for example, or the plague that had wiped out half of the refugees hiding in the Western Air Temple – but that time they were old enough to understand what death meant.

Now, as they cried noisily, it seemed all their pent-up grief and fear and rage were spilling over. Katara's heart twisted with empathy, but not a single tear escaped her. She felt strange, as if her head were on a war balloon bobbing on a string which had been spooled out far above her body. Vaguely she was aware of Shong yelling something angry-sounding, and jerked herself out of her reverie.

"Are we all going to die, then?" he was demanding of Toph. "Amit's the Avatar. What happens to us? We'll be killed or sold into slavery."

"Don't say such things," Katara reprimanded him automatically. "Where did you get an idea like that?"

"It's true," the burly boy protested. "You can't stop them. You couldn't stop them from killing Jaiv or taking Amit. How do we know the others that Zuko took away aren't dead too?"

"Amit wasn't taken; he's with Zuko. I helped the others find a safe place. Some of them even met with their parents." At this, some of the children stopped crying. A few were choking on their own sobs, and coughed as they struggled to breathe again. Yural, her arms clasped tight around Katara's abdomen, took a long, shuddery breath. "Just because none of you are the Avatar doesn't mean we won't still fight to protect you, or that we don't care for you. We're here now, aren't we?"

The dark look that had settled over Shong's features refused to clear. "For how much longer? Until you turn us into somebody else's problem."

Detaching the children who were clinging to her, Toph rose, strode over to the scowling boy, and struck him so hard that he was lifted up and off his feet, and fell backward on the hard earth. Stunned, he raised his arms in a defensive posture as she advanced another step, but she merely worked her mouth around and then spat at his feet.

"If you're feeling so ungrateful, why don't you see how you'll make it on your own?" she said, voice flat but full of scorn. Extending both arms, she tensed and lifted them, and a slab of earth rose up underneath their supplies. To the rest of the children, she commanded, "Let's go."

They followed without protest, hiccupping and rubbing at their eyes. Katara knelt and gathered Quopuk and Yural, the two most exhausted from crying, into her arms. Quopuk she slung over her back, and Yural clutched at her front like a flying lemur kit. They clung to each other's forearms to keep from sliding off. A few more timidly approached the levitating slab and climbed aboard after Toph nodded her approval, and she allowed Tanith to climb on her back. Together, they began to earthbend the slab while Toph cleared a path with her feet for them through the jungle.

From where he lay on the ground, Shong began to tremble and weep. Silently, Sokka knelt and scooped him up in his arms, and began to follow the others. Their feet hit the ground in heavy, weary unison.

It was to be a long night.

* * *

Zuko and Amit left in the wee hours, ushered out with the garbage disposal, an arrangement made by Kuzon. With them he sent copies of the maps and schematics Zuko had been examining, a satchel full of supplies, and a simple warning: "Constant vigilance. And seek the White Lotus wherever you may find her." He clasped Amit's hands longer than was seemly, staring into the child's eyes, but when there was no response he finally withdrew, looking even older and more stooped than before. Zuko peered out of the back of the garbage wagon. The old man stood motionless, watching the cart pull away until he was merely a smudge on the lightening horizon. Eventually the wagon halted and they disembarked, melting away into the forest without a sound.

As they walked, Zuko replayed the strange encounter over in his head, keeping half-alert for signs of Jet. In this part of the jungle, huge tree-roots had ripped the flat earth asunder, and they had to clamber over the uneven terrain. The former prince was soon distracted by a warm hand which slipped into his own, and forced himself not to recoil.

"What was Aang like?"

Zuko glanced down to make sure he hadn't imagined the question. Amit's eyes were unusually focused, and he seemed to expect an actual answer. Feeling somewhat at a loss, the firebender attempted to dodge the inquiry:

"Isn't that something you should know better than I?"

A pause, and then the boy nodded. "He speaks with me, sometimes. I don't understand a lot of what he's trying to tell me. I try to be quiet and let him have his way. He's afraid for me."

The way the sunlight pierced through the canopy at irregular intervals reminded him of something.

_Do you think we could have been friends?_

The corner of his mouth curled involuntarily at the memory.

"_I know your mind. You mean to let them have him_." The words were a taunt, but devoid of the tone. Filmy, they filtered into Zuko's consciousness, and he replied without thinking:

"You know nothing."

Amit removed his hand. "I didn't say anything." He sounded – hurt? Zuko glanced down, but the boy's expression had returned to its usual glaze of calm.

Hours passed in silence. Zuko moved with deliberate slowness, and the boy did not question him. He was surprised when it was Amit who touched him, again, and more timidly this time, saying,

"Someone is following us. He's close."

Gazing down at the Avatar, he was shocked for a second time when a wave of fondness rushed through his stomach. The boy's brow was barely knit, and he seemed to be more concerned for Zuko than for himself. The firebender put a reassuring hand on Amit's shoulder.

"Run. Hide until I call for you."

Amit obeyed, and Zuko stopped in his tracks and turned to face their pursuer, watching and waiting.

Jet seemed to sense his intentions, for he appeared abruptly out of the upper canopy, dropping down from a formidable height and landing on all fours like a hog-monkey before righting himself and taking a slow, measured assessment of the situation. The way his head swiveled, too, and his eyes flashed, was reminiscent of a predator's.

He was a tangle of ill-matched clothes. Week-old blood spatters mingled with mud and other filth on his tattered rags, and the blood on his bare feet looked fresh. The bone armor he wore, on the other hand, was stark white and had been fitted snugly to his body. The horns which curled up over his shoulders, stopping at his covered jawline, were particularly disconcerting. Crouching down, there was little left about him that could have been called human.

Zuko took up a defensive posture out of habit, but offered little resistance when Jet suddenly sprang up and over him, drawing his hook swords. He moved only enough to avoid a fatal blow, and let his hands fall to his sides as Jet gripped him by the shoulders, crossing the swords in front of his face.

The hooks were stained dark and stank of gut-blood. Zuko's vision blurred as he struggled to focus on them. Gently Jet angled them up and then down, letting them graze over Zuko's cheeks and bringing forth the tiniest amount of blood. "Shouldn't you be pleading for your life?"

"I wouldn't plead on the behalf of something so trivial."

A pause, but the pressure of the swords' hilts neither lessened nor increased. He wondered if he had caught Jet off guard and cast his good eye about in search for Amit, but the boy seemed to have vanished.

"In any case, it's not your life I want."

Zuko controlled his breathing as Jet drew the swords down his cheeks and rested them at the hollow of his throat. "You want the Avatar."

"It's your sister who wants him; your corpse will be nice addition to the tribute I'll bring her."

"I don't intend to fight you. We'll come with you of our own accord."

If he was surprised by Zuko's declaration, Jet did not show it. "Why shouldn't I just kill you and take the child?"

"He won't follow you without me. _Particularly _not if you kill me."

"I know you, Zuko. At your core you're a betrayer, nothing else. Destroying, destroyed, with no control over where you cast your allegiances next – like a cart running out of control down the side of a mountain."

The terrorist didn't seem to be expecting a verbal reply. Zuko shifted a little, cautiously, to take the weight off his injured leg. He could feel the muscles in Jet's arms tensing as he did so. The scarf covering his mouth brushed against the top of Zuko's ear as he tightened the circle of his arms, pressing his chest to Zuko's back.

"Outcast. Traitor." Whispered as softly as a love-word. "You're just like me."

_I'm nothing like you._

"I don't have a choice in this matter." As if someone else was narrating the words for him.

"Once I offered you the chance to fight by my side," Jet continued, as if he had not heard the firebender. "Isn't that so? I seem to remember it so." With each slow, steady breath the bones of his armor pressed into Zuko's back, making the former prince's skin crawl.

Then, abruptly as they had appeared, Jet withdrew his swords and stood down, sheathing them. Stepping back, he watched dispassionately as Zuko turned slowly to face him. His head was cocked to one side, and he stood in a patch of midday sun which made the bone armor, like a tarnished cage, gleam dully. Traces of scar tissue were visible at his temples. Zuko had to squint to focus, but they looked like old burns – thin, and precise.

Lifting one bloody, scarred hand, the terrorist extended his arm to the fallen prince.

Zuko hesitated, and then grasped Jet's forearm. It was surprisingly thin, but hard as stone. Though his body recoiled instinctively, he forced himself to stand his ground. Without breaking contact, and with full appreciation that he could not turn back, he called out,

"Amit."


	9. Thrall

The rain fell steadily through the morning, hampering the Firelady's return; the road up to the capital was slick and muddy. Thuza took up position on a meditation rug under the outer eaves just inside the palace gates, where he drew out a finely edged scroll and read to pass the time, taking diligent notes. Finally, midway into the afternoon, the horns that preceded the opening of the great gates sounded, and he gathered himself languidly, wrapping his reading materials inside of the rug and sending it off with one of the slaves.

As the royal procession drew nearer, Thuza walked out to meet the Firelady, stopping a good four feet in front of her palanquin to prostrate himself on the ground before her. When several moments had passed, he raised his head cautiously to the level of her knees, keeping his eyes respectfully downcast. In his peripheral vision he could just make out the figure of Ty Lee crouched behind her, hidden behind the layers of veils draped over the palanquin, her eyes glittering in their shadows like a cat's.

"My lady, it is my great honor to welcome you home."

"You may rise." Nimbly she leapt down from the platform and gestured for the bearers to take it away with Ty Lee still inside. Thuza adopted a servile posture, with his hands clasped at the base of his back. His slitted amber eyes, like a bird of prey's, roamed restlessly as they walked side by side toward the heart of the inner courtyard, into the main palace building where Azula's quarters were.

"I hope the report you received was satisfactory, Firelady." Neither seemed bothered by the rain, which had gradually turned into a fine mist, but the corner of Azula's mouth twitched in annoyance at his tone.

"Drop the honorifics. It was good of you to send it out in advance of my return, but there didn't seem to be anything in it about the civilian issues we discussed previously." She seized upon this small criticism primarily to see how he would react, but he remained unperturbed.

"It was my understanding that you no longer wished to be informed on those matters. I have kept the records, and there is new intelligence, but I have arranged, as you instructed, to discuss it with Mai. If you should wish otherwise – "

His insensitivity, or feigned indifference, to her subtle shifts in mood was both refreshing and, given the mild amusement which it customarily provided her with, also slightly unnerving. She waved him off, stepping aside so that the heavy doors to the inner palace could be opened for them. "No, no. I trust the two of you to take care of such trifles."

Thuza waited until they were inside, and several slaves were removing Azula's armor, to continue: "There is one item that was not included in the report, as we received the hawk only yesterday." From one of his voluminous sleeves, he withdrew a tattered parchment.

One immaculate arch of an eyebrow rose, but she made no movement, he arms still held out at her sides so that her breastplate could be removed, and waited as the slaves took down her thick hair. "I expect it's something urgent if you're so eager to show it to me."

"In my humble judgment, it is." She could almost see him choking on the suppressed _Highness_. Then, to her surprise, his gaze shifted over her left shoulder and seemed to unfocus. From behind her, she heard the timid inquiry,

"_Issumatak_, may I…?"

The overseer inclined his head, and a shiver ran over her body as the moisture in her hair and her clothes was waterbent from her. Lowering her arms, she took the parchment from Thuza's still-outstretched hand without further comment, and scanned it. She recognized the violent, sloppy handwriting, and though only a few characters were legible she discerned its contents with ease. Between two of her fingers she lit it, and casually tossed it over her shoulder in the general direction of the waterbender. Thuza made as if to go after it, but stopped himself as she continued walking, and he was obliged to keep page with her.

"Very well. Have the East Wing prepared for my brother, and…I don't know. Shall we have the royal nursery outfitted as a temporary prison?" Azula laughed to herself, an expression of delight which was robbed of its expressiveness by the lack of tone. "In any case, I'll send a reply this evening with instructions."

He inclined his head in a near-imperceptible bow. The floor-length thob he favored, dyed so deep a shade of crimson that it was nearly black, and his shaven pate gave him a curious, monkish appearance. His skin was dark for a citizen born in the former Fire Nation; he knew it, and conducted himself accordingly. Perhaps his impressive record with the slaves was due to this fact, Azula mused idly as she scrutinized him. He kept his eyes politely averted, pretending not to notice. Here was a man with no ambition beyond his station whatsoever, but a steadfast zeal for his exact position; precisely the sort of underling she appreciated. _People ought to fit into their correct places, like a well-oiled clockwork._

"For now, have two of the best court scribes and one of the Fire Crones sent to my quarters." She watched as he made note of it, and commented, looking for his reaction, "Courtship is such tedious exercise."

Not even a flicker of distaste. "As you wish. The customary arrangements for your personal servants have also been made, as you requested."

"Oh? Good. I hope they've got some spirit in them; the last few weren't much fun." This, finally, seemed to leave some impression on him, and he bowed low, ostensibly to demonstrate his apologies for her displeasure, though she suspected actually it was to hide his face. _Well, no mind, for now_. "I'll call for you sometime in the next several days."

She watched his figure become smaller and smaller as he strode away through the long marble hallway, his pace and posture unchanging, his hands still clasped behind his back, and waited until he had vanished fully to slip into her chambers, biting down on a grotesque smile.

* * *

The attendant to Mai's quarters permitted Thuza's access automatically, a stipulation she herself had made. He greeted her only slave warmly, and she went to brew them unasked-for tea. After exchanging a number of pleasantries, Thuza produced a report and showed it to her, explaining,

"I didn't wish to trouble your mistress, but the situation is steadily growing worse. The number of enforcers at our disposal is dwindling. The Phoenix King continues to call them out to aid in quelling the resistance. The people in the cities are starving and miserable; those in the country suffer from last year's drought. Pirate activity has significantly decreased our imports. We are working on transferring to a system of submarine transport, but there is no way to feed the entire country." He indicated for her the relevant sections of the report, and she listened intently as she brushed her hair. There was nothing, finally, that she could offer in return to him, and she held out one hand in an expression of helplessness.

"Azula was very clear. She doesn't want any civilians to leave the boundaries of the former Fire Nation."

"I understand." At her invitation, he joined her at the small table and helped himself to a cup of tea. "I had thought to dispatch some of the slaves to work in the fields. Some can conjure water from the air. It will raise morale for the people to have slaves of their own."

Mai noted how her slave listened to the exchange with interest. She was a new girl, and looked barely thirteen; the weapons specialist hadn't asked for her name yet, and didn't intend on it. It was unwise to become close to slaves. "Won't that make the situation more unstable? Who's going to control all of them?"

"If they don't work, they starve, too. None of them value freedom over their lives." Thuza's expression was inscrutable, but his voice had a gentle, almost teasing lilt to it. "I have personally ensured that it is so." The slave, hearing this, shuddered a little, clutching at one shoulder with her opposite hand.

"I'll speak to her about it."

"That is all I ask. It would not do well for our nation to neglect its people, and certainly not with such capable resources on our hands." Thuza rose, but before taking his leave he commented, "There is one small matter about which I wanted to inform you."

She paused in her combing, signaling that she was listening.

"An item of personal interest, I suspect. The former prince is on his way back to the capital."

The comb clattered to the table, and she did not bother to grasp after it. "Zuko?"

"Mm. With the Avatar in his possession. He intends to throw himself on his sister's mercy, I suppose." Now the overseer _was_ smiling, an ugly expression. "I thought you would like to know."

Her calm regained, she stared out of the high window in her quarters. The grey was oppressive, though not as much as the opulence of her quarters, which had been re-done in her absence without her knowledge or consent. "Thank you."

"Of course. When the time comes, I know you will remember me in kind."

She did not relish imagining what he could mean by this comment, and brushed it aside with a polite and vague inclination of her head.

As Thuza was shown out by the young slave, she fingered the needles lining the sleeves of her robe and her breath quickened, remembering the iron will it had required to steel her hand and plunge the dagger into Zuko's thigh. It sunk in easily, missing the bone; she had been close enough, in that instant, to smell him, and the memory made her dizzy.

She had faltered, and missed her mark. Dazed, she bore up under her punishment later with forbearance, leaving Azula dissatisfied at the mildness of Mai's reaction to the pain to which she was subjected. Bored, she'd given up rather than push the issue, warning her not to let it happen again, and instead took her sour mood out on Ty Lee, which in truth hurt Mai more than her own punishment.

By what proxy would Azula torture her now that Zuko was on his way? Probably her feelings did not cross the Firelady's mind with the child-Avatar at stake; but it was no consolation. Azula could smell a drop of blood or sweat in a vast ocean; even if awareness and manipulation of Mai's emotions was not a priority or intention of hers, she would certainly be aware of how her actions affected her incidentally, and enjoy the knowledge.

Unbidden, rage rose within her, and she dashed the comb with its delicate filigree to the table, splintering it into pieces. Behind her she was aware of the slave-girl cowering in fear, no doubt wondering what sort of person was her new mistress. For a moment, she was glad to be thought of as wild and cruel, before her anger burst and the tears came, and she buried her face into her hands.

* * *

Their progress through the jungle was slower than Zuko had imagined it would be, judging from the speed at which they had been pursued. The stress of traveling in a group made Jet uneasy, and slowly started a nervous twitch in the right side of his body. As they walked he paced round them in circles like a caged wolf, occasionally speaking nonsense to no one in particular. Zuko tried to ignore him, but Amit followed him with his eyes with an expression like fear on his face. Finally he took Zuko's hand and would not release it. The firebender permitted it, though not without exasperation.

That night, when camp had been made and dinner eaten (Jet had dragged his portion half cooked off into the foliage to eat alone, but then returned to resume watching them with wild eyes) Zuko attempted to make conversation with the terrorist. "Jet."

He paused in his relentless circling. Zuko motioned for him to sit, but he remained where he stood, staring suspiciously at the former prince. Deciding that being direct was the best way to go about it, Zuko asked, "Why are you working for the Firelady? I thought you hated the Fire Nation."

Finally he did move, kneeling by the fire and opening his palms, as if to firebend. "And I thought you and your uncle weren't firebenders." The twitching was more pronounced, now, as he stirred the embers of the campfire with a broken branch. His eyes seemed to glaze over as he gazed, intently, into the flames. Finally, when so much time had passed that Zuko was sure he didn't intend to give him an answer, he continued, "I don't work for her. She owns me."

Amit, who slept uneasily at the fireside at Jet's demand, stirred a little but did not wake.

"I owe her a debt. She saved my life." The words came out muffled by the scarf and strangled with strange emotion, though the expression of the half of his face which was uncovered remained relatively placid. Only the sharp brows were knit over his eyes, the pupils unnaturally large in the firelight.

Zuko surmised that he was speaking of his time in Ba Sing Se, where Sokka had claimed he'd died. If his sister had saved him, probably it was only a matter of applying pressure to the same throat she herself had slit. "Some debts can only be repaid in blood."

At the apex of another tremor, Jet made a noise that could have been a laugh had it not sounded like the wet slap of a human skull connecting with a brick wall. "I intend to."

* * *

Azula lay as inert as a sunbathing mink-snake on a chaise lounge while her new retinue fussed over her – washing her hair, exfoliating the soles of her feet and the palms of her hands, spreading a facial cream over her high cheekbones. She inhaled and caught the scent of mint, and approved. Thuza was distasteful, but an apt overseer; he had been honest when he claimed he'd trained these slaves to her liking.

A knock came at the door and she waved one lazy hand, approving when the slave who had been massaging it stepped back quickly. Ty Lee caught her gesture and its meaning, and rose to answer the knock. When she did not return immediately, Azula waved the attendants off and dismissed them to her inner chambers. Ty Lee was still at the door, engaged in a conversation with a guard whose uniform was not palace issue. Frowning, she gathered her robe and tied it off, then joined Ty Lee.

"Firelady, these men have come from your admirer, with a message and a gift."

Azula raked her eyes over the small group: three soldiers in the uniform of the Phoenix King's personal guard, and one slave. All three were dwarfed by the large, ice-encased barrels on the rolling cart that they attended. A cool vapor was steadily rising from the ice, and Azula took the scroll which Ty Lee held out to her, burning through the seal and scanning it quickly until she reached the end:

_I have sent with the emissaries two vats of the finest, freshest solution; rich and nourishing, of the best stock possible. The Water women produce it, and it is said that they are some of the strongest (if most brutish) women in the world, and tremendously fertile; it would do my mind much good if you were to take it as your bath for however long the supply will last; and be assured I will send more when I have found a fresh source. You might also add some to your tea, and see how you like it. _

She paused in her reading to eye the slave, who was nervously running his hands over the ice. The letter concluded with a few lines of poetry, not her father's strongest suit:

_The young blossom_

_Having fallen from the tree,_

_Returning, is twice as sweet._

Below was stamped the royal seal in red wax. He'd singed the insignia first, a token of both his power and affection. Azula brushed her fingertips over it briefly before rising and going over to one of the huge vats. She indicated that she wanted it opened and one of the soldiers scrambled over himself in his haste to obey her.

When the top had been pried off, an unmistakable odor filled the room. The waterbender looked nervous and ill, and the soldier who had assisted her placed a hand on the hilt of his sword, glaring at the slave in a threatening way. Azula licked her lips and swallowed, and drawing closer peered over the rim.

_Oh, Father. Really, you shouldn't have._

The black-red surface trembled like water, but more slowly. She extended her smallest finger and skimmed it over the surface, catching droplets on her perfectly manicured nail. Bringing it to her mouth, she drew the nail over her lower lip. She could see her reflection, like a murky shadow, in the oily surface. The metallic taste rang her in mouth like a chorus of clear bells. Closing her eyes briefly in an expression of deep content, she gestured for the present to be taken away.

"Ty Lee. Go with them, and ensure that it's given proper storage."

For the sake of the guards who were watching, Ty Lee bowed, but Azula could see her disgust and resentment in the stiffness of her back and neck, and ground her teeth just perceptibly, letting the contortionist know her insolence would not be suffered.

When all had gone, and she was alone, she judged that she had only minutes before the scribes and Crone arrived, and she would need then to begin her reply. Holding her father's letter at arm's length, she considered what she could send him in turn. A small movement at the door to her inner chambers caught her eye, and she turned abruptly. Two pairs of blue eyes widened and vanished in the space of a breath.

It seemed Thuza had not trained this bunch as well as she'd originally thought. A shame, but…

"Somehow," she mused aloud, tossing the scroll on the chaise lounge and heading toward the inner chamber with blue flame at her fingertips, "I have a feeling that it's all going to work out."

The slam of the crimson door, etched in gold, echoed behind her.


	10. Return

_This was your place of birth, this daytime palace,  
This miracle of glass, whose every hall  
The light as music fills, and on your face  
Shines petal-soft; sunbeams are prodigal  
To show you pausing at a picture's edge  
To puzzle out the name, or with a hand  
Resting a second on a random page-_

_The clouds cast moving shadows on the land._

_Are you prepared for what the night will bring?  
The stranger who will never show his face,  
But asks admittance; will you greet your doom  
As final; set him loaves and wine; knowing  
The game is finished when he plays his ace,  
And overturn the table and go into the next room?_

- P. Larkin

* * *

He'd lost the ability to determine if he had slept. All time, with the exception of when he was on the hunt, seemed to pass in the same unbearably slow way that made his old wounds itch. Certainly he had lain down, but his consciousness did not extend beyond this memory. The ground was cold and hard, but not yet wet with the dew of early morning. It had been enough time for the fire to die completely, but this he could observe and did not have to remember.

The knowledge that the hallucinations pursued him even beyond the confines of the palace caused Jet to feel something like despair. It seemed that one might call it cruel, even; that he had lost this much of his self-possession, and yet his self in its entirety refused obliteration, like the refuse from an imploded star.

The way he blinked was slow, and he felt it. One eyelid moving at a time. _Blink._ Reptilian. _Blink._

One eye came to rest at the edge of the dead fire, where the banished prince and the child slept. They were positioned back to back, and it was Amit's, and not Zuko's, face that was visible to him. In the cold of pre-dawn time, the child's face looked as if it were carved from stone. Jet supposed he was obliged to feel something, but the recognition brought forth nothing further. One need not extend a fishing-pole into a foul sewer to understand that nothing living can be dredged up.

Observing Zuko's back, Jet noted that the breaths were far too few, and the breathing too shallow, for the firebender to be asleep. One corner of his mouth twisted in parody of interest and amusement, but he did not move from where he lay inert on the ground, like a snake on its belly.

It seemed the prince was a poor specimen from an otherwise impressive genetic pool. Closing one eye, Jet attempted to remember if his first impression of Zuko had been any different. The deceit he remembered. That trait was like Azula, and yet not. Deception for her was a means to an end at the conclusion of a path so twisted Jet doubted she was able to see it clearly herself. Fraud was the medium through which she experienced the world. Her very existence was disingenuous. She considered it an art.

In contrast, Zuko's deceit seemed clumsy, rough-hewn. To hide, to lie – for what purpose? Jet had never yet understood. From what he had heard from the time he was broken and re-made in Azula's image, their peaceful time in Ba Sing Se had come to an end. Zuko had betrayed his uncle; and then he betrayed his father again, in turn. If Azula's treachery was the arrow which finds its way into the heart of a comrade, then Zuko's was the archer who manages, inexplicably, to find himself impaled on his own shot.

Azula. Jet did not relish being so far from his mistress. Both to watch, and to be watched. For when her eyes were upon him, so too was he closest to the thread which kept him most securely bound to reality – the memory of her hands inside of him. Recalling the touch of her fingers on his skull, and the movement inside. The brain-meat had no nerves with which to feel, but he could smell it – the odor of burning matter, and a flash of light, and a portion of his reality melted before he could remember that it had existed in the first place.

In the half-consciousness after the operation, Jet heard the doctors call what she had done to him 'lobotomy.' Though he heard and processed very little, he seized upon this word, a clean word that was almost rapacious in its clinical, cold tones. A possession. As her country had taken possession of the world – as she had taken possession of his mind, of his past –

He would have. So he too would have.

A void hungers, if nothing else, with the yawning, yearning ache to come into being, or to destroy being; all one, in the end.

* * *

For days they wandered near-aimlessly through the forest. Using the tattered maps they had left – though bound to have shifted in the years since they'd scavenged them – Sokka led them slowly 'away' from what they knew would hunt them toward they knew not what. The rainy season was settling in upon them, and it was often wet, and cold at night. Katara's arms throbbed from the continual strain of waterbending cover over them, and when at last she let them fall, no one said a word as the rain began to pelt their faces.

The first few evenings, Katara slept among the children, asking no permission and making no comment about the sudden change. It was warm enough yet to go without pitching tents, if one did not mind the dampness of the ground, and so Sokka would have had a difficult time with her nonetheless.

On the fifth day, however – a fifth day of endless walking, of very little talk, of more rain – Sokka called to them to rest, that he and Katara would scout ahead. Toph tensed visibly at the suggestion, but said nothing.

He claimed her against an ancient tree, not bothering to remove their clothing. The rain dripped down through the upper canopy and against the leaves with soft, bright noises. She closed her eyes and concentrated on the small sounds of the water, willing it to erase the slap of his pelvis against the backs of her thighs, the monstrous moaning of his ragged breath. So intent were they both in erasing their individual, conscious perception that neither of them noticed the child until it was too late.

Tanith, peering out from behind a bush, gave a little cry and fell. Instinctively she knew that she had seen something not meant for her eyes. At this noise Sokka paused, and Katara took the chance to wrench away from him, gathering her skirts back around her. Her entire body was flushed with exertion and shame. Though Tanith's eyes were blue, like her own, for a moment she had seen the wise, unreproachful gaze of Amit through the foliage, and it threatened to stop her heart.

Sokka cursed, fumbling to re-arrange his tunic. Neither of them said a word, but at length Tanith crept back out from behind the bush, mumbling under her breath. Kneeling with difficulty, Katara beckoned her over.

"It's all right; don't be frightened."

Yet there was no fear in the set of the girl's jaw. Having been summoned, she strode forward, recovering herself, and demanded, "Why was Sokka hurting you?"

She could feel her brother's eyes upon her, but did not dare look back to meet them. "He hasn't hurt me. Come, let's find the others."

As they walked away, she could feel his fury and indignation as keenly as if they had been stones hurled at her departing form. So thinking, she allowed the smallest of smiles to steal across her face.

After all, wasn't that how they dealt with such things in the old days? The Fire Nation said the Water tribes were a barbaric people.

Sokka proved that they were right.

* * *

"We're not fit to have care of these children anymore." Katara pronounced the words matter-of-factly, and Toph's foot on the earth twitched as she read the change in the waterbender. Her manner seemed to have become more serene. The curvature of her spine as the energy from it funneled into the earth and was read through Toph's sole seemed straighter, and less strained. Sokka, on the other hand, was even more morose than usual; she suspected she could feel the negative energy which radiated from his brooding form even if her feet were covered and bound.

"We never were in the first place," he muttered.

"What can we possibly do otherwise?" Toph objected. "It's not as though we could leave them to fend for themselves."

"All we have to do is find another camp somewhere. It shouldn't take very long. We can send another messenger mole."

"Your father's unit was stationed not too far from here a couple of weeks ago."

Silence. Both siblings seemed to shift around, looking to one another.

"What? Did you think I just ignored the messages, especially with the two of you neglecting to tell me? I had Zuko read them to me."

"I have no interest in seeing that man," Sokka stated flatly.

Toph stamped one dirt-covered foot dangerously close to the fire, feeling the scattered cinders drift past her and land on her exposed arms and legs. "It's not about your 'interest.' It's about getting them somewhere safe before something really terrible happens to them."

Now he shifted forward, placing both hands on his knees, his upper body positioned in a threatening, coiled posture. "Something _really_ terrible, hm? Something more terrible than what happened earlier today?"

The concept of 'forcing a blank expression' was lost on Toph, but she had to still the impulse of her body to make a stray movement. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Sokka," Katara warned, but the young man had already got to his feet.

"You were supposed to be watching them," he said. "I thought you cared about them."

Toph spit into the fire, making her contempt plain. "You have no right to question me."

"Then why did you purposefully send Tanith after us?"

There was a pause as Toph considered how to respond. She could feel Katara holding her breath, no doubt wondering about Sokka's accusation. Finally, refusing to lift her head or move from her seat, she said: "What was I supposed to do – let you have your way with her again?"

"Maybe you should have come after me on your own. Or were you afraid of what you might 'see'?" Sokka's voice rose as he spoke, wilder than the snarl of a beast.

Her voice low and urgent, Katara interjected, "Stop it. You're going to wake the children."

Now she did raise her head, aiming sightless eyes where she knew Sokka's face to be. Over the years she took note of how uncomfortable it made people when a blind woman made 'eye contact' with them, and used this now to her advantage, aggressing against him. "I'm not afraid of you."

He refused to back down. "Then state your accusations. If you have objections, give them to me, instead of laying the burden on a child."

Toph's heart skipped around in her chest, her nameless fear materializing, having been given a name, if not a visage. _I've been a coward._ Still, defiant, she forced herself to her feet, thrusting her chest outward, meeting his hostility with her own.

"The fact is, you've seen nothing, all of this time." He was close enough so that she could feel the stray moisture from his hoarse, desperate words hit her cheeks, but she did not flinch. "You didn't lose your parents, your people. You sacrificed nothing. You didn't see her die." Trembling madly, it seemed that Sokka had only just managed to hold himself back from striking a blow, as the posture of his body relaxed minutely and he stepped back, spitting a final accusation at her. "You know nothing."

With that, and a violent motion in Katara's direction, he was gone.

Katara moved to help support her, but Toph gestured roughly, folding her shaking arms over her chest. Her feet were planted firmly on the earth as she 'listened' to Sokka's footsteps fade into the jungle. Involuntarily, her toes curled, and she pressed one hand to her face, wondering if its expression was, against her will, etched with regret.

* * *

"This place is a ruin."

Zuko spoke without thinking before the thought had fully coalesced in his head. He, Jet and Amit were passing through the place where the gate to the capital city had once stood – now, an empty, gaping maw. Vendors, their carts empty, called out listlessly as they passed. The citizens who walked around kept their eyes fixed on the ground, and the one or two slaves Zuko saw were cuffed and on leads, following their masters with eyes no more alert than stray dogs'. He recognized little of the architecture and none of the people.

"All the metal's gone – war effort. All the food's gone – soldiers need to eat." Contrasted with these people, Jet looked almost human. The twitching in his face had subsided considerably, and he moved with long strides that seemed almost eager. Holding Amit's hand, Zuko had to walk quickly to keep up with him.

The former prince recognized him from a distance by sense alone, but his eye would have been drawn nonetheless because of the finery of his carriage and escort. Thuza hailed Jet with a simple bow, and then turned his attention to Zuko.

"Prince," he offered, bowing again. "It is good to see you once again."

Zuko did not reply, trying not to focus directly on the man's face, and instead detached his hand from Amit's and urged the boy forward, looking away. "Here's what you wanted."

"Not I, dear prince, but your sister." Thuza knelt to greet Amit face-to-face. "Hello, little one. My name is Thuza."

Out of the peripheral vision in his good eye Zuko watched the exchange. Amit did not shrink from the greeting or question what was to be done with him, but when Thuza rose and went to speak with Jet, the child recovered Zuko's hand. When he looked down again, Amit's face – surprisingly, to be sure – was glazed with what Zuko could only vaguely define as fear.

They were permitted to walk the rest of the way to the palace, but at the gates to the inner courtyard (which still stood, and did not appear to have changed in the years Zuko had been absent) the former prince was ordered to take off his robe, and restrained. Amit protested softly as they were separated, but Thuza put one arm over his small shoulders, saying,

"The prince must go to see his sister, young Avatar. You'll come with me. Quietly, and behave. Isn't that so?"

Amit seemed on the verge of dissent, but the way Zuko gazed at him quieted his objections. Nodding, he allowed Thuza to take hold of his hand. The scholar drew himself up, and looked serenely at Zuko and the two guards who flanked him.

"Your sister is eager to see you, Prince. Please convey to her my warm regards."

The guards were not particularly rough with him, but they spoke not a word. He meditated as he walked between them and through the heart of the palace, as Uncle had taught him, by forced willful control of his breath. He emptied his mind of what lay behind the golden doors to the Firelady's inner chambers, and saw only fire dancing in front of an empty throne.

This vision obscured his true sight as the doors swung inward and the guards pushed him forward into blackness.


	11. Candle

_Drip. Drip. Drip._

He measured time by the sound of falling water. Aside from the distant rumbling of the machines in the workyard, which occasionally suffused the walls of his cell with a shuddering akin to thunder, it was the only sound. Ah, and the sound of his breathing. The muffled thud of his heartbeat in his ears. When he pressed his wrist to the side of his head, he swore the sound was amplified; he imagined his body lying in a volcanic crater, the gurgle of the lava as it crept over him…

Teetering out on the edge of losing his grip on reality, he reeled himself back from the farthest point.

It had been nearly a month since Zuko was ordered into solitary confinement. The reason given in the official notice that he had been permitted to read before they locked him up was that his presence 'caused disruption among the prison population'; it was also a consideration that 'harm would befall his person.' This was the only official acknowledgment of what had happened, up to that point, thrice – the first time in the communal showers, and when the guards had put a stop to it, twice more with two separate room-mates. His will to resist was broken after the first time – perhaps even prior to it – and as his cheek was ground into the moldy shower tiles, Zuko wondered briefly if Azula had known, perhaps even provided the opportunity, or given the order herself.

Yet it seemed that it was not so. Or perhaps it _was_ so. The insect in the spider's snare knows nothing of the depths to which the web reaches; and in struggling, it can only prolong its own torment.

They brought him food twice a week. He was aware that he was starving, but the physical sensation of pain was a comfort; a register of flux within the otherwise uniform world in which he now lived. At first he thought it would help if he kept active, but several times during meditation and light exercise he broke down weeping. It was then that he remembered his uncle's words; or perhaps he invented the words, but he could hear them said in his uncle's voice, cautioning him to slow, to wait, to sleep.

Now the dripping water lulled him deeper into his mock-hibernation. The stone underneath his head was cool and rough. He was at the most subterranean level of the prison. A reminder, like the soft rustling of a leaf in the breeze, stirring at the back of his brain. In another three hundred drips, he would have to rotate his body if he wanted to avoid developing more sores from inaction.

Unbidden, an image of the Water tribe girl rose before him. He wondered idly if she would have used the water to her advantage. Somehow, she didn't seem like the type to stay locked up for very long. Whereas he…

He had forgotten what he would have done. Which he, and when? And to what end…?

Her skin was very dark, he remembered, and it made his scalp crawl with ingrained distaste. Her forehead was too broad, and it glistened with sweat when she fought him. Yet when she had touched him in the crystal caverns deep below Ba Sing Se, he had felt no disgust. Her hand had been warm and gentle.

Faced with a present as harrowing as the one he had known in the prison, Zuko had ceased to regret the past – for a time. Solitary provided him with something he hadn't had since a time when he was young, when his mother had disappeared.

Total solitude equals self equals TIME TO THINK.

"Time to get up, Zuko."

Instinctively he jerked away from the presence. He had heard no one approach, and could see nothing. But the smell of another human being was unmistakable. A scent so heavily burdened with memory that he felt his back bow further under its weight, and placing blistered palms to the floor he heaved himself up with difficulty. He could feel his ribs, covered in barely-closed sores, scrape over the stones. His prison-issue clothing, no more than scraps, had rotted in the darkness, and clumsily he sought to cover his nakedness.

"There, there." A woman's voice.

A candle flared to life, gleamed briefly, and then settled down to a scarce, flickering point of light. Pain blossomed behind his closed eyelids, but he forced them open as best he could, prepared to face the presence before him. Through narrowed slits he perceived that the figure, a tall reddish streak, was kneeling before him, bringing the candle closer; then, out of what he presumed to be consideration for his sorry state, it was extinguished.

Zuko had not spoken in weeks. When he opened his mouth, his throat simply refused to produce sound. Then his lips were covered with a slim, soft hand; the long sleeve, its rich embroidery rough against his cheek, smelled of jasmine.

"I waited so long to see you."

Dully he was aware of his head being lifted and placed into the woman's lap. The scent on her clothing was overpowering, and he would have feared becoming ill had his stomach not been completely empty. Her voice was smooth and deep; mellifluous and tender. The motion of her hands was ceaseless, and in her caresses he discovered that his hair had grown long and mangled; that his body was marred with more bruises and sores than he had been aware of. She responded to the painful quivering of his frame with receptive gentleness; her touch became lighter than he imagined possible, and slowly he felt himself lulled, like a cat, into a state of trance.

_My Zuko._

His eyes flew open; desperately he struggled to raise himself up once again. Torn from his throat against its will, the word "Mother!" resounded in the room like an ugly, harsh crack.

The candle's light bloomed again, and he struggled against the agony in his eyes and head, straining to see her.

The long, dark hair done in the simple royal style. The pale skin gleaming like polished rice. The faint, enigmatic smile. Ursa's eyes were unbearably sad as she beheld her only son.

He dared not believe it. His breath came in gasps as her hands moved over him, the joints of her fingers lingering over each rib. He kept his eyes on the face that had haunted his nightmares and daydreams for over a decade as she embraced him. When her fingers reached the curve of his hip, he colored frantically, realizing that his lower half was caked with dried urine and grime. Trying to warn her, he twisted away like an insect, small noises of protest rising from his closed throat.

But her fingers stilled, then dug in. She would not let him move.

Something was wrong; her smile was widening, cracking, her lips regaining a flushed color not unlike blood; the eyes gleamed amber, not grey, reflecting the light of the candle as it danced crazily…

The candle –

Ursa shifted from her formal sitting posture, and Zuko could see the flame which seemed to erupt from nowhere hovering over her right foot.

Now wildly he fought to free himself, but her grip on his pelvis, her thumb digging into the plane where bone jutted out, became deathlike; he could feel her other palm, flat against his neck, heating up with a fiery intensity, and he froze. It seemed she was strong enough to snap him in two.

The flame went out once more, and they were covered in darkness again.

"Dear Zuko," she said, and the mellifluous tone of her voice dropped, becoming sharper, more rigid, even as the hand on his pelvis snaked lower and lower, "aren't you happy to see me? My return from the shadows hasn't pleased you? I know you've been waiting," and she dropped her head, close enough for their lips to touch, "so very long."

He could remember nothing after that. When he regained consciousness he found himself in a standard issue cell in the main section of the prison, clothed and – for all visible intents and purposes – whole.

It was the last time Zuko had seen his sister.

Some choked-off, abstracted piece of himself was relieved to note that her hair was twisted up in the style she had favored for years, and that the robes she wore were of a style he did not recognize, though they seemed to be pattered off a feminine adaptation of the Firelord's traditional clothing. He dared not meet her eyes; instead he advanced to the appropriate place before her and kneeled, pressing his forehead to the floor. With disgust he noted his legs trembling, and took a long, deep breath to quell his panic.

Unsurprisingly, it did not help.

"Lift your head."

He obeyed without thought. With each motion, he emptied himself of motive, of observation, of reaction. His motions became stiff and mechanical, his face as blank as a doll's. When he met his sister's eyes through the cataract of flame between them, his face held no more expression than a corpse's.

* * *

Zuko was terrified.

Azula had seen the expression countless times before: tortured prisoners on the verge of death by slow blood-loss; slaves who had been made to execute their comrades; and it was the face Ty Lee had begun to make after she and Azula had shared a bed for well over a year, each time the Firelady claimed her.

In other words, it was thoroughly boring.

Briefly she toyed with the idea of killing him to make an example. Ozai had made it clear to her that he had no desire to see his son dead, and it would be instructive to her future husband as to how little his wishes meant to her. Of course, she would have to make it seem as if Zuko forced her hand, so as not to rouse her father's wrath. Eventually, though, the realization (if only in retrospect) that it had been for the sake of her pleasure only would find the Phoenix King. Perhaps too late for him to derive any benefit from the knowledge; and that would make it all the more enjoyable. If she wished to ground her tale in reality, she need only enlighten her brother as to the upcoming nuptials…

While she mused, their gazes had not left one another, and abruptly she was struck with a realization so exhilarating that she nearly smiled.

It was faint, but the subdued gleam in his eye, the motion of the corner of his lower lip, gave him away.

Zuko knew.

Leaning forward, Azula did permit herself the smile. _Yes, and yes, and yes._

* * *

When Jet produced himself before Thuza, the overseer was kneeling formally behind a male slave, combing snarls from the slave's dark hair with his bare fingers, which shone with oil from the unwashed hair. The expression on the face of the slave was inscrutable, particularly to Jet's severely dulled sense of emotional perception, but the set of Thuza's jaw, as usual, was serene.

"You've made the Firelady very happy indeed."

It was uncomfortable to sit. Jet paced instead, which was made difficult in the cramped quarters. The walls were plastered with ancient documents – scrolls stretched flat and held in place with nails; tattered maps of unrecognizable locations; calligraphy so beautifully rendered that its meaning was impossible to decipher. In contrast, the furniture was simple: a flat, rolled-up pallet that served as a bed, a worn writing desk, and several 'cushions' of flattened, straw-filled burlap. Even Jet's quarters, in comparison, seemed large and sumptuous. Yet all of it was by Thuza's express wish.

Shaking his head in irritation at how the very presence of the man put him into a semi-hypnotic trance not unlike that of a rat in the sights of a minksnake, Jet positioned himself in a corner, defensively, and waited for Thuza to continue.

Minutes passed. Finally, he spoke again: "Is there something I can do for you?"

"I came for my next set of orders."

"I'm unaware that any were to be issued." Thuza paused, and withdrew his hands from the slave's hair, who immediately turned and knelt to wash the oil from his overseer's fingers using an ornate bowl filled with warm water beside him. "You should rest; you've certainly earned it."

"Rest." The very idea was vile; poisonous. Rest brought idleness, thought, memory. Rest, and he would be alone, without even a piece of prey to console him.

"Perhaps it would be preferable if you were given some direction…?" Languidly, with a motion so mild that Jet nearly missed it, Thuza dismissed the slave, who gathered comb and bowl into his arms and left without a sound. The moment stretched out painfully, and Jet dug his fingernails into the soft beds of his palms. Once they were alone, Thuza waited just a few seconds more, and then at the apex of Jet's discomfort, continued, "Of course, you understand that I am unable to provide you with an assignment as such, as your labor belongs to Our Highness."

At times he was aware that old expressions and habits made their physical manifestation known, like a glimpse of a fossilized insect deep within centuries-hardened amber; and so he could sense, but was at a loss to alter, the sarcastic half-smirk, half-snarl that crept over his features. _It's my labor that belongs to her._

"But I do not believe the Firelady would object if I made one small comment." Thuza's heavy-lidded eyes were unblinking, and his body made no unnecessary movement, but the set of his mouth seemed to communicate wordlessly to Jet.

His body tensed, the hair on his arm's bristling like a dog's.

"It seems she has pardoned her brother; both he and the Avatar will be in residence at the palace for the foreseeable future."

More than he'd hoped, but less than he would have liked. Jet had no illusions about the Firelady retaining either of spoils he'd brought back for his own enjoyment; more likely, once she'd had her fill, she wouldn't even permit him to pick over the bones. His snarl deepened, and he turned to leave without a word; suddenly he paused, as if a new thought had struck him, remembering Zuko's willingness to accompany him, and casting it now in fresh light.

Behind him, the scholar tilted his head to the side just within the range of discernable motion, and turned one slim hand palm-up, examining a faint burn mark inscribed therein. His final words snaked out after Jet, departing, and out into the hallway.

"Enjoy yourself."

* * *

Mai was working in one of the disused war-rooms when a knock came at the door, startling her. She purposefully had not informed anyone of her presence there, and she had dismissed her servant girl for the day; no part of her wished to be easily located while Azula decided what was to be done with her new acquisitions. Carrying herself gingerly around the apprehension in her chest that was as tangible as physical pain, she forced herself up to answer it.

It was a guard, one whom she recognized as a special favorite of Thuza's. At his side, with his small wrists manacled in front of him, was the Avatar. Briefly the guard explained that she would have custody of the child while Thuza attended some business; then the two of them would find suitable residence afterwards.

She regarded him without expression, recalling her training in the protocols of slave-dealing. _Displays of emotion serve no one. You do not lavish affection upon tools; neither waste human exchanges upon mere animals. _Always it had been difficult for her to do so with her actual slaves, but this was different. Standing there before him, Mai felt a thick rush of anger. This child was the reason for which her world was torn to pieces. If he had been unable to stop Azula then, certainly he would be unable to do so now. She doubted that the Firelady would kill him, but it was certain that he was not to enjoy, at barest, comfortable existence within the palace walls.

As if he followed her train of thought, he reached out to take her hand. Startled, she pulled away before he could make contact, a spray of needles slipping instinctively into her fingers from within the folds of her robe. He watched her curiously, without apparent fear.

"Sit," she managed dryly, gathering herself. "Anywhere is fine."

He obeyed silently, taking a cross-legged position on the floor near where she had been working. His still-childish movements, with shuffling feet and awkward posture, reminded her briefly of her little brother, and a dart of empathy lanced the heaviness in her chest. When he had settled down, he looked up at her, and against her better judgment she re-drew one of her needles and, kneeling, used it to pick the lock on the cuffs which bound him. As she worked, she felt his steady grey eyes boring into her, and fought a feeling that they had met before.

"My name is Amit," he said, when the cuffs had fallen away. Though his wrists were red and slightly chafed, he made no motion to rub them.

"I'm Mai." There was something disarming about this young Avatar, and after a few moments had passed in silence, fear for Zuko's safety won out over fear of Azula. "You were travelling with Pri – with Zuko, is that right?"

The boyish face became a little less solemn at the mention of Zuko's name. "Do you know him?"

Mai drew her lower lip in between her teeth, then rose in one swift motion, turning to her work, and did not answer. Curiously, the boy did not press her further, and when she stole a glance in his direction she observed that he was meditating with his eyes closed, looking for all the world as if he had dozed off in a sitting position.

Another knock, softer this time, came at the door, and Mai swore under her breath as she rose, gathering the cuffs from the floor in preparation to put them back on Amit if it proved to be Thuza, or worse, the Firelady –

But the guest at the door asked no further permission following the knock, and instead simply entered.

It was Zuko.

At the sight of him, the ache in her chest subsided considerably, then redoubled, bringing with it new and strange pain. She struggled with a greeting, determined not to betray her feelings by word or expression.

He had aged awfully since she had last seen him. Gone were the traces of bright youthful energy. Though Zuko had carried a formidable burden from the day on which he was scarred and exiled, as Mai had known him in his teens, he seemed to retain an openness that was perhaps as simple as youth itself, or the struggling desire for redemption. Now his face bore other scars in addition to the burn; his hair had grown long and unkempt; and he was dirty and thin, but above all he seemed defeated. From the way he moved into the room, limping slightly, she could tell that he had either a recent wound, or a serious, older one, or a combination of both.

Briefly she wondered how she appeared to him, but cast aside the thought as quickly as it arose, as it could not have been plainer that he simply did not care that she was there. Amit had clambered to his feet and practically run over to Zuko, who gave him a stiff, one-armed hug and then finally looked to Mai.

Was it her imagination, or had his expression lightened somewhat when the Avatar embraced him?

Zuko bowed to her formally, and with obvious difficulty. "Thank you for looking after him."

She did not return the bow, and forced herself to gaze coldly upon both of them. "I have work to finish."

He nodded, and taking the child by the hand, left the room, shutting the door quietly behind them. Silence filled the void they left, looming large upon her. She imagined that she could hear the wild sound of her heartbeat her hand convulsed reflexively around the needle she'd used to unlock the handcuffs, driving the metal deep into the flesh of her palm.

One shaking hand found the edge of the table and gripped it desperately as she struggled to breathe.


End file.
